EDUCATION : 



INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL 



BY 

HERBERT SPENCER, 

AUTHOR OP "A ST8TEM OF SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY.' 



NEW YORK: 
APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

72 FIFTH AVENUE. 
1896. 






Copyright, 1860, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



<3Ift from 
^ts. Edwarb N. Dingte^ 

July 2 1 9?.2 



PEEFACE. 



The four chapters of which this work con- 
sists, originally appeared as four Review articles : 
the first in the Westminster Review, the second 
in the North British Beview, and the remaining 
two in the British Quarterly Beview. Severally 
treathig different divisions of the subject, but 
together forming a tolerably complete whole, I 
originally wrote them with a view to their repub- 
lication in a united form ; and they would some 
time since have thus appeared in England, had 
not the proprietor of the North British Beview 
refused to let me include the one contributed to 
that periodical. This interdict is, however, of no 
effect in the United States ; and some transatlan- 



PREFACE. 

tic friends having represented to me that an 

American re-issue was desirable, I have revised 

the articles, and placed them in the hands of 

Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. 

H. S. 

London, July, 1860. 



co:^te:n"ts, 



I. WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? . 21 

II. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION, . . .97 

III. MORAL EDUCATION, . . . .161 

IV. PHYSICAL EDUCATION, . . , .219 



1 



Education at Eton, 1842-5. 



" Balston, our tutor, was a good scholar after the 
fashion of the day, and famous for Latin verse ; but 
he was essentially a commonplace don. ' Stephen 
major,' he once said to my brother, ' if you do not 
take more pains, how can you ever expect to write 
good longs and shorts ? If you do not write good 
longs and shorts, how can you ever be a man of 
taste ? If you are not a man of taste, how can you 
ever hope to be of use in the world ? ' " 

{The Life of Sir James Fitzjaynes Stephen, Bart., by his 
brother, Leslie Stephen, pp. 80-1.) 



EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? 

It lias been truly remarked tliat, in order of 
time, decoration precedes dress. Among people 
who submit to great physical suffering that they 
may have themselves handsomely tattooed, ex- 
tremes of temperature are borne with but little 
attempt at mitigation. Humboldt tells us that an 
Orinoco Indian, though quite regardless of bodily 
comfort, will yet labour for a fortnight to purchase 
pigment wherewith to make himself admired ; and 
that the same woman who would not hesitate to 
leave her hut without a fragment of clothing on, 
would not dare to commit such a breach of decorum 
as to go out unpainted. Yoyagers uniformly find 
that coloured beads and trinkets are much more 
prized by wild tribes than are calicoes or broad- 
cloths. And the anecdotes we have of the ways in 
which, when shirts and coats are given, they turn 



22 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? 

tliem to some ludicrous display, show how com- 
pletely the idea of ornament predominates over 
that of use. Nay, there are still more extreme il- 
lustrations : witness the fact narrated by Capt. 
Speke of his African attendants, who strutted about 
in their goat-skin mantles when the weather was 
fine, but when it was wet, took them off, folded 
them up, and went about naked, shivering in the 
rain ! Indeed, the facts of aboriginal life seem to 
indicate that dress is developed out of decorations. 
And when we remember that even among our- 
selves most think more about the fineness of the 
fabric than its warmth, and more about the cut 
than the convenience — when we see that the func- 
tion is still in great measure subordinated to the 
appearance — we have further reason for inferring 
such an origin. 

It is not a little curious that the like relations 
hold with the mind. Among mental as among 
bodily acquisitions, the ornamental comes before 
the useful. Not only in times past, but almost as 
much in our own era, that knowledge which con- 
duces to personal well-being has been postponed to 
that which brings applause. In the Greek schools, 
music, poetry, rhetoric, and a philosophy which, 
until Socrates taught, had but little bearing upon 
action, were the dominant subjects ; while knowl- 
edge aiding the arts of life had a very subordinate 
place. And in our own universities and schools at 
the present moment the like antithesis holds. We 
are guilty of something like a platitude when we 



1 



THE OBNAMENTAL PRECEDES THE USEFUL. 23 

say that tliroiighoiit liis after-career a boy, in nine 
cases out of ten, applies his Latin and Greek to no 
practical purposes. The remark is trite that in his 
shop, or his office, in managing his estate or his fam- 
ily, in playing his part as director of a bank or a rail- 
way, he is very little aided by this knowledge he took 
so many years to acquire — so little, that gener- 
ally the greater part of it drops out of his mem- 
ory ; and if he occasionally vents a Latin quotation, 
or alludes to some Greek myth, it is less to throw 
light on the topic in hand than for the sake of ef- 
fect. If we inquire what is the real motive for giv- 
ing boys a classical education, we find it to be sim- 
ply conformity to public opinion. Men dress their 
children's minds as they do their bodies, in the pre- 
vailing fashion. As the Orinoco Lidian puts on his 
paint before leaving his hut, not with a view to any 
direct benefit, but because he would be ashamed to 
be seen without it ; so, a boy's drilling in Latin and 
Greek is insisted on, not because of their intrinsic 
value, but that he may not be disgraced by being 
found ignorant of them — that he may have " the 
education of a gentleman " — the badge marking a 
certain social position, and bringing a consequent 
respect. 

This parallel is still more clearly displayed in 
the case of the other sex. In the treatment of both 
mind and body, the decorative element has con- 
tinued to predominate in a greater degree among 
women than among men. Originally, personal 
adornment occupied the attention of both sexes 



24 WHAT KNOWLEDGE 18 OF MOST WORTH ? 



equally. In these latter days of eivilizatioH, how- 
ever, we see that in the dress of men the regard for 
appearance has in a considerable degree yielded to 
the regard for comfort ; while in their education 
the useful has of late been trenching on the orna- 
mental. In neither direction has this change gone 
so far w^ith women. The wearing of ear-rings, fin- 
ger-rings, bracelets ; the elaborate dressings of the 
hair ; the still occasional use of paint ; the immense 
labour bestowed in making habiliments sufficiently 
attractive ; and the great discomfort that will be 
submitted to for the sake of conformity ; show how 
greatly, in the attiring of women, the desire of ap- 
probation overrides the desire for warmth and con- 
venience. And similarly in their education, the 
immense preponderance of " accomplishments " 
proves how here, too, use is subordinated to dis- 
play. Dancing, deportment, the piano, singing, 
drawing — what a large space do these occupy ! If 
you ask why Italian and German are learnt, you 
will find that, under all the sham reasons given, the 
real reason is,, that a knowledge of those tongues is 
thought ladylike. It is not that the books written 
in them may be utilized, which they scarcely ever 
are ; but that Italian and German songs may be 
sung, and that the extent of attainment may bring 
whispered admiration. The births, deaths, and 
marriages of kings, and other like histoi-ic trivial- 
ities, are committed to memory, not because of any 
direct benefits that can possibly result from know- 
ing them ; but because society considers them parts 



n 



WHY THE SHOWY PEEDOMINATES. 



25 



of a good education — because tlie absence of such 
knowledge may bring the contempt of others. 
When we have named reading, writing, spelling, 
grammar, arithmetic, and sewing, we have named 
about all the things a girl is taught with a view to 
their direct uses in life ; and even some of these 
have more reference to the good opinion of others 
than to immediate personal welfare. 

Thoroughly to realize the truth that with the 
mind as with the body the ornamental precedes the 
useful, it is needful to glance at its rationale. This 
lies in the fact that, from the far past down even to 
the present, social needs have subordinated individ- 
ual needs, and that the chief social need has been 
the control of individuals. It is not, as we com- 
monly suppose, that there are no governments but 
those of monarchs, and parliaments, and constituted 
authorities. These acknowledged governments are 
supplemented by other unacknowledged ones, that 
grow up in all circles, in which every man or wo- 
man strives to be king or queen or lesser dignitary. 
To get above some and be reverenced by them, and 
to propitiate those who are above us, is the univer- 
sal struggle in which the chief energies of life are 
expended. By the accumulation of wealth, by 
style of living, by beauty of dress, by display of 
knowledge or intellect, each tries to subjugate 
others ; and so aids in weaving that ramified net- 
work of restraints by which society is kept in order. 
It is not the savage chief only, who, in formidable 
War-paint, with scalps at liis belt, aims to strike 



26 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTH ? 

awe into his inferiors ; it is not only the belle who, 
by elaborate toilet, polished manners, and numer- 
ous accomjjlishments, strives to " make conquests ; " 
but the scholar, the historian, the philosopher, use 
their acquirements to the same end. We are none 
of us content with quietly unfolding our own indi- 
vidualities to the full in all directions ; but have a 
restless craving to impress our individualities upon 
others, and in some way subordinate them. And 
this it is which determines the character of our ed- 
ucation. Not what knowledge is of most real worth, 
is the consideration ; but what will bring most ap- 
plause, honour, respect— what will most conduce to 
social position and influence — what will be most 
imposing. As, throughout life, not what we are, 
but what we shall be thought, is the question ; so 
in education, the question is, not the intrinsic value 
of knowledge, so much as its extrinsic effects on 
others. And this being our dominant idea, direct 
utility is scarcely more regarded than by tlie bar- 
barian when tiling his teeth and staining his nails. 

If there needs any further evidence of the rude, 
undeveloped character of our education, we have it 
in the fact that the comparative worths of different 
kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even 
discussed — much less discussed in a methodic way 
with definite results. ]N"ot only is it that no stand- 
ard of relative values has yet been agreed upon ; 
but the existence of any such standard has not 
been conceived in any clear manner. And not 



RELATIVE VALUES OF KNOWLEDGE. 27 

only is it that the existence of any such standard 
has not been clearly conceived ; but the need for it 
seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read 
books on this topic, and attend lectures on that; 
decide that their children shall be instructed in 
these branches of krowledge, and shall not be in- 
structed in those ; and all under the guidance of 
mere custom, or likingj or j^rejudice ; without ever 
considering the enormous importance of determin- 
ing in some rational way what things are really 
most worth learning. It is true that in all circles 
we have occasional remarks on the importance of 
this or the other order of information. But whether 
the degree of its importance justifies the expendi- 
ture of the time needed to acquire it ; and whether 
there are not things of more importance to which 
the time might be better devoted ; are queries 
which, if raised at all, are disposed of quite sum- 
marily, according to personal predilections. It is 
true also, that from time to time, we hear revived 
the standing controversy respecting the comparative 
merits of classics and mathematics. Not only, how- 
ever, is this controversy carried on in an empirical 
manner, with no reference to an ascertained crite- 
rion ; but tlie question at issue is totally insignifi- 
cant when compared with the general question of 
whicli it is part. To suppose that deciding wheth- 
er a mathematical or a classical education is the 
best, is deciding what is the proper curriculum., is 
much the same thing as to suppose that the whole 



28 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

of dietetics lies in determining wlietlier or not bread 
is more nntritive than potatoes ! 

The question which we contend is of such tran- 
scendent moment, is, not whether such or such 
knowledge is of worth, but what is its relative 
worth ? When they have named certain advan- 
tages which a given course of study has secured 
them, j^ersons are apt to assume that they have jus- 
tified themselves : quite forgetting that the ade- 
quateness of the advantages is the point to be 
judged. There is, perhaps, not a subject to which 
men devote attention that has not some value. A 
year diligently spent in getting up heraldry, would 
very possibly give a little further insight into an- 
cient manners and morals, and into the origin of 
names. Any one who should learn the distances 
between all the towns in England, might, in the 
course of his life, find one or two of the thousand 
facts he had acquired of some slight service when 
arranging a journey. Gathering together all the 
small gossip of a county, profitless occupation as it 
would be, might yet occasionally help to establish 
some useful fact — say, a good example of hereditary 
transmission. But in these cases, every one would 
admit that there was no proportion betAveen the re- 
quired labour and the probable benefit. ISTo one 
would tolerate the proposal to devote some years 
of a boy's time to getting such information, at the 
cost of much more valuable information which he 
might else have got. And if here the test of rela- 
tive value is appealed to and held conclusive, then 



TIME OF ACQUISITION LIMITED. 29 

slionld it be appealed to and held conclusive 
tlirongliout. Had we time to master all subjects 
we need not be particular. To quote the old song : — ^ 

Could a man be secure 

That his days would endure 

As of old, for a thousand long years, 

What things might he know I 

What deeds might he do ! 

And all without hurry or care. 

" But we that have but sjmn-long lives " must ever 
bear in mind our limited time for acquisition. A.nd 
remembering how narrowly this time is limited, not 
only by the shortness of life, but also still more by 
the business of life, we ought to be especially solic- 
itous to employ what time we have to the greatest 
advantage. Before devoting years to some subject 
which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise to 
weigh with great care the worth of the results, as 
compared with the worth of various alternative re- 
sults which the same years might bring if otherwise 
aj)plied. 

In education, then, this is the ques tion of ^ ues- 
tions, which it is high time we discussed in some 
methodic way. Tlie first in importance, though the 
last to be considered, is the problem — how to decide 
among the conflicting claims of various subjects on 
our attention. Before there can be a rational cur^ 
riculum, we must settle which things it most con- 
cerns us to know ; or, to use a word of Bacon's, 
now unfortunately obsolete — we must determine 
the relative values of knowledo;es. 



30 AVHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

To tins end, a measure of value is tlie first re- 
quisite. And happily, respecting the true measure 
of value, as expressed in general terms, there can 
be no dispute. Every one in contending for the 
worth of any particular order of information, does 
BO by showing its bearing upon some part of life. 
In reply to the question, " Of what use is it ? " the 
mathematician, linguist, naturalist, or philosopher, 
explains the way in which his learning beneficially 
influences action — saves from evil or secures good — 
conduces to happiness. When the teacher of writ- 
ing has pointed out hoAV great an aid writing is to 
success in business — that is, to the obtainment of 
sustenance — that is, to satisfactory living ; he is 
held to have proved his case. And when the col- 
lector of dead facts (say a numismatist) fails to make 
clear any appreciable effects which these facts can 
produce on human welfare, he is obliged to admit 
that they are comparatively valueless. All then, 
either directly or by imj^lication, appeal to this as 
the ultimate test. 

How to live ? — that is the essential question for 
us. Not how to live in the mere material sense 
only, but in the widest sense. The general problem 
which comprehends every special problem is — the 
right ruling of conduct in all directions under all 
circumstances. In what way to treat the body ; in 
what way to treat the mind ; in what way to man- 
age our affaii-s ; in what way to bring up a family ; 
in what way to behave as a citizen ; in what way 
to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature 



THE GREAT AIM OF EDCCATION. 31 

bupplies — how to use all our faculties to the great- 
est advautage of ourselves and others — how to live 
completely ? And this being the great thing needful 
for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing 
which education has to teach. To prepare us for 
complete living is the function which education has 
to discharge ; and the only rational mode of judg- 
ing of any educational course is, to judge in what 
degree it discharges such function. 

This test, never used in its entirety, but rarely 
even partially used, and used then in a vague, half 
conscious way, has to be applied consciously, me- 
thodically, and throughout all cases. It behoves us 
to set before ourselves, and ever to keep clearly in 
view, complete living as the end to be achieved ; so 
that in bringing up our children we may choose 
subjects and methods of instruction, with deliberate 
reference to this end. Not only ought we to cease 
from the mere unthinking adoption of the current 
fashion in education, which has no better warrant 
than any other fashion ; but we must also rise above 
that rude, empirical style of judging displayed by 
those more intelligent people who do bestow some 
care in overseeing the cultivation of their children's 
minds. It must not suffice simply to tJtinlv that 
such or such information will be useful in after life, 
or that this kind of knowledge is of niore practical 
value than that ; but we must seek out some process 
of estimating their respective values, so that as far 
as possible we may positively hnow which are most 
deserving of attention. 
3 



oJi WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOETII « 

Doubtless the task is difficult — perhaps never 
to be more than approximately achieved. But, 
considering the vastness of the interests at stake, 
its difficulty is no reason for i^usillanimously pass- 
ing it by ; but rather for devoting every energy to 
its mastery. And if we only proceed systematic- 
ally, we may very soon get at results of no small 
moment. 

Our first step must obviously be to classify, in 
the order of their importance, the leading kinds of 
activ.'^ty which constitute human life. They may 
be naturally arranged into : — 1. Those activities 
which directly minister to self-preservation ; 2. 
Those activities which, by securing the necessaries 
of life, indirectly minister to self-preservation ; 3. 
Those activities which have for their end the rear- 
ing and discipline of offspring ; 4. Those activities 
which are involved in the maintenance of proper 
social and political relations ; 5. Those miscella- 
neous activities which make up the leisure part of 
life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and 
feelings. 

That these stand in something like their true 
order of subordination, it needs no long considera- 
tion to show. The actions and precautions by 
which, from moment to moment, we secure personal 
safety, must clearly take precedence of all others. 
Could there be a man, ignorant as an infant of all 
surrounding objects and movements, or how to 
guide himself among them, he would pretty cer- 
tainly lose his life the first time he went into tlip 



CLASSIFICATION OF OUR ACTIVITIES. 33 

street : notwithstanding any amount of learning lie 
might have on other matters. And as entire igno- 
rance in all otlier directions would be less promptly 
fatal than entire ignorance in this direction, it must 
be admitted that knowledge immediately conducive 
bo self-preservation is of primary importance. 

That next after direct self-preservation comes 
the indirect self-preservation which consists in ac- 
quiring the means of living, none will question. 
That a man's industrial functions must be con- 
sidered before his parental ones, is manifest from 
the fact that, speaking generally, the discharge of 
the parental functions is made possible only by the 
previous discharge of the industrial ones. The pow- 
er of self-maintenance necessarily preceding the 
power of maintaining offspring, it follows that 
knowledge needful for self-maintenance has stronger 
claims than knowledge needful for family welfare 
— is second in value to none save knowledge need- 
ful for immediate self-preservation. 

As the family comes before the State in order of 
time — 'as the bringing up of children is possible be- 
fore the State exists, or when it has ceased to be, 
whereas the State is rendered possible only by the 
bringing up of children ; it follows that the duties 
of the parent demand closer attention than those of 
the citizen. Or, to use a further argument — since 
the goodness of a society ultimately depends on the 
nature of its citizens ; and since the nature of its cit- 
izens is more modifiable by early training than by 
anything else ; we must conclude that the welfare 



34 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

of the family underlies the welfare of society. And 
hence knowledge directly conducing to the first, 
must take precedence of knowledge directly con- 
ducing to the last. 

Those various forms of pleasurable occupation 
which fill up the leisure left by graver occujDations 
— ^the enjoyments of music, poetry, painting, &c. — 
manifestly imply a pre-existing society. Kot only 
is a considerable development of them impossible 
without a long-established social union ; but their 
very subject-matter consists in great part of social 
sentiments and sympathies. Not only does society 
supply the conditions to their growth ; but also the 
ideas and sentiments they express. And, conse- 
quently, that ]3art of human conduct which consti- 
tutes good citizenship is of more moment than that 
which goes out in accomplishments or exercise of 
the tastes ; and, in education, preparation for the 
one must rank before preparation for the other. 

Such then, we repeat, is something like the ra- 
tional order of subordination : — Tliat education 
which prepares for direct self-preservation ; that 
which prepares for indirect self-preservation ; that 
which prepares for parenthood ; that which prepares 
for citizenship ; that which prepares for the miscel- 
laneous refinements of life. We do not mean to 
say that these divisions are definitely separable. 
We do not deny that they are intricately entangled 
with each other in such way that there can be no 
training for any that is not in some measure a train- 
ing for all. Nor do we question that of each di' 



OKDEB OF SUBOKDINATION OF SUBJECTS. 35 

vision there are portions more important than cer- 
tain portions of the preceding divisions : that, for in- 
stance, a man of much skill in business but little 
other faculty, may fall further below the standard 
of complete living than one of but moderate power 
of acquiring money but great judgment as a pa- 
rent ; or that exhaustive information bearing on 
right social action, joined with entire want of gen- 
eral culture in literature and the fine arts, is less 
desirable than a more moderate share of the one 
joined with some of the other. But, after making 
all qualifications, there still remain these broadly- 
marked divisions ; and it still continues substan- 
tially true that these divisions subordinate one an- 
other in the foregoing order, because the corre- 
sponding divisions of life make one another possible 
in that order. 

Of course the ideal of education is — complete 
^preparation in all these divisions. But failing this 
ideal, as in our phase of civilization every one must 
do more or less, the aim should be to maintain a 
due 'proportion between the degrees of preparation 
in each. Not exhaustive cultivation in any one, su- 
premely important though it may be — not even an 
exclusive attention to the two, three, or four divis- 
ions of greatest importance ; but an attention to 
all, — greatest where the value is greatest, less where 
the value is less, least where the value is least. For 
the average man (not to forget the cases in which 
peculiar aptitude for some one department of knowl- 
edge rightly makes that one the bread-winning oc- 



SG WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTII ? 

cupation) — for the average man, we say, the desid- 
eratum is, a training that approaches nearest to 
perfection in the things which most subserve corn- 
plete living, and falls more and more below perfec- 
tion in the things that have more and more remote 
bearings on complete living. 

In regulating education by this standard, there 
are some general considerations that should be ever 
present to us. The worth of any kind of culture, 
as aiding complete living, may be either necessary 
or more or less contingent. There is knowledge of 
intrinsic value ; knowledge of quasi-intrinsic value ; 
and knowledge of conventional value. Such facts 
as that sensations of numbness and tingling com- 
monly precede paralysis, that the resistance of water 
to a body moving through it varies as the square 
of the velocity, that chlorine is a disinfectant, — these, 
and the truths of Science in general, are of intrinsic 
value : they will bear on human conduct ten thou- 
sand years hence as they do now. The extra knowl- 
edge of our own language, which is given by an ac- 
quaintance with Latin and Greek, may be consid- 
ered to have a value that is quasi-intrinsic : it must 
exist for us and for other races whose languages owe 
much to theee sources ; but will last only as long as 
our languages last. While that kind of information 
which, in our schools, usurps the name History 
— the mere tissue of names and dates and dead un- 
meaning events — has a conventional value only : it 
has not the remotest bearing upon any of our ac- 
tions ; and is of use only for the avoidance of those 



INTKINSIC AND CONVENTIONAL VALUES. 37 

anpleasant criticisms which current opinion passes 
upon its absence. Of course, as those facts whicli 
concern all mankind throughout all time must he 
held of greater moment than those which concera 
only a portion of them during a limited era, and of 
far o-reater moment than those which concern only a 
portion of them during the continuance of a fashion \ 
it follows that in a rational estimate, knowledge of 
intrinsic worth must, other things equal, take pre- 
cedence of knowledge that is of quasi-intrinsic or 
conventional worth. 

One further preliminary. Acquirement of every 
kind has two values — value as knowledge and value 
as discipline. Besides its use for guidance in con- 
duct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also 
its use as mental exercise ; and its effects as a pre- 
parative for complete living have to be considered 
under both these heads. 

These, then, are the general ideas with which we 
nmst set out in discussing a curriculum : — Life as 
divided into several kinds of activity of successively 
decreasing importance ; the worth of each order of 
facts as regulating these several kinds of activity, 
intrinsically, quasi-intrinsically, and conventionally ; 
and their regulative influences estimated both as 
knowledge and discipline. 

Happily, that all-important part of education 
which goes to secure direct self-preservation, is in 
great part already provided for. Too momentous to 
be left to our blundering, Nature takes it into her 



S8 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

own hands. While yet in its nurse's arms, the infant, 
by hiding its face and crying at the sight of a stran^ 
ger, shows the dawning instinct to attain safety by 
flying from that which is unknown and may be 
dangerous ; and when it can walk, the terror it 
manifests if an unfamiliar dog comes near, or the 
screams with which it runs to its mother after any 
startling sight or sound, shows this instinct further 
developed. Moreover, knowledge subserving direct 
self-preservation is that which it is chiefly busied 
in acquiring from hour to hour. How to balance 
its body ; how to control its movements so as to 
avoid collisions ; what objects are hard, and will 
hurt if struck ; what objects are heavy, and injure 
if they fall on the limbs ; which things will bear 
the weight of the body, and which not ; the pains 
inflicted by fire, by missiles, by sharp instruments 
■ — these, and various other pieces of information 
needful for the avoidance of death or accident, it is 
ever learning. And when, a few years later, the 
energies go out in running, climbing, and jumping, 
in games of strength and games of skill, we see in 
all these actions by which the muscles are devel- 
oped, the perceptions sharpened, and the judgment 
quickened, a preparation for the safe conduct of the 
body among surrounding objects and movements; 
and for meeting those greater dangers that occa= 
sionally occur in the lives of all. Being thus, as 
we say, so well cared for by Nature, this funda- 
mental education needs comparatively little care 
trom us. What we are chiefly called upon to see, 



EDUCATION FOR SELFPEESERVATION. 39 

is, that there shall be free scope for gaining this ex- 
perience, and receiving this discipline, — that tliere 
shall be no such thwarting of Natnre as that by 
which stupid schoolmistresses commonly prevent 
the girls in their charge from the spontaneous phys- 
ical activities they would indulge in ; and so ren- 
der them comparatively incapable of taking care of 
themselves in circumstances of peril. 

This, however, is by no means all that is com- 
prehended in the education that prepares for direct 
self-preservation. Besides guarding the body 
against mechanical damage or destruction, it has 
to be guarded against injury from other causes — 
against the disease and death that follow breaches 
of physiologic law. For complete living it is ne- 
cessary, not only that sudden annihilations of life 
shall be warded off ; but also that there shall be es- 
caped the incapacities and the slow annihilation 
which unwise habits entail. As, without health 
and energy, the industrial, the parental, the social, 
and all other activities become more or less impos- 
sible ; it is clear that this secondary kind of direct 
self-preservation is only less important than the pri- 
mary kind ; and that knowledge tending to secure 
it should rank very high. 

It is true that here, too, guidance is in some 
measure ready supplied. By our various physical 
sensations and desires, Nature has insured a tolera- 
bl3 conformity to the chief requirements. Fortu-= 
nately for us, want of food, great heat, extreme cold, 
produce promptings too peremptory to be disre- 



40 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

garded. And would men habitually obey these and 
all like promptings when less strong, comparatively 
few evils would arise. If fatigue of body or brain 
were in every case followed by desistance ; if the 
oppression produced by a close atmosphere always 
fed to ventilation ; if there were no eating without 
hunger, or drinking without thirst ; then would the 
system be but seldom out of working order. But 
so profound an ignorance is there of the laws of life, 
that men do not even know that their sensations are 
their natural guides, and (when not rendered mor- 
bid by long-continued disobedience) their trustwor- 
thy guides. So that though, to speak teleologic- 
ally, Nature has provided efficient safeguards to 
health, lack of knowledge makes them in a great 
measure useless. 

If any one doubts the importance of an acquaint- 
ance with the fundamental principles of physiology 
as a means to complete living, let him look around 
and see how many men and women he can find in 
middle or later life who are thoroughly well. Oc- 
casionally only do we meet with an example of 
vigorous health continued to old age ; hourly do 
we meet with examples of acute disorder, chronic 
ailment, general debility, premature decrepitude. 
Scarcely is there one to whom you put the ques- 
tion, who has not, in the course of his life, brought 
upon himself illnesses which a little knowledge 
would have saved him from. Here is a case of 
heart disease consequent on a rheumatic fever that 
followed reckless exposure. There is a case of eyes 



EFFECTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNOKANCE, 41 

spoiled for life by overstudy. Yesterday the ac- 
count was of one whose long-enduring lameness was 
brought on by continuing, spite of the pain, to use 
a knee after it had been slightly injured. And to 
day we are told of another who has had to lie b}/ 
for years, because he did not know that the palpita- 
tion he suffered from resulted from overtaxed brain. 
Now we hear of an irremediable injury that follow- 
ed some silly feat of strength ; and, again, of a con- 
stitution that has never recovered from the effects 
of excessive work needlessly undertaken. While 
on all sides we see the perpetual minor ailments 
which accompany feebleness. Not to dwell on the 
natural pain, the weariness, the gloom, the waste 
of time and money thus entailed, only consider how 
greatly ill-health hinders the discharge of all duties 
— makes business often impossible, anc]» always more 
difficult ; produces an irritability fatal to the right 
management of children ; puts the functions of citi- 
zenship out of the question ; and makes amusement 
a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins — 
partly our forefathers' and partly our own — which 
produce this ill-health, deduct more from complete 
living than anything else ? and to a great extent 
make life a failure and a burden instead of a bene- 
faction and a pleasure ? 

To all which add the fact, that life, besides being 
thus immensely deteriorated, is also cut short. It 
is not true, as we commonly suppose, that a disor- 
der or disease from which we have recovered leavee 
us as before. No disturbance of the normal course 



4:2 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

of the functions can pass away and leave tilings ex- 
actly as they were. In all cases a permanent dam- 
age is done — not immediately appreciable, it may 
be, but still there ; and along with other such items 
which Nature in her strict account-keeping never 
drops, will tell against us to the inevitable shorten- 
ing of our days. Through the accumulation of 
small injuries it is that constitutions are commonly 
undermined, and break down, long before their 
time. And if we call to mind how far the ayerage 
duration of life falls below the possible duration, 
we see how immense is the loss. When, to the nu- 
merous partial deductions which bad health entails, 
we add this great final deduction, it results that or- 
dinarily more than one-half of life is thrown away. 
Hence, knowledge which subserves direct self- 
preservation by preventing this loss of health, is of 
primary importance. We do not contend that pos- 
session of such knowledge would by any means 
wholly remedy the evil. For it is clear that in our 
present phase of civilization men's necessities often 
compel them to transgress. And it is further clear 
that, even in the absence of such compulsion, their 
inclinations would frequently lead them, spite of 
their knowledge, to sacrifice future good to present 
gratification. But we do contend that the right 
knowledge impressed in the right way would efit'ect 
much ; and we further contend that as the laws of 
health must be recognised before they can be fully 
conformed to, the imparting of such knowledge 
must precede a more rational living — come when 



STRANGE OBLIQUITIES OF OPINION. 43 

that TTiay. We infer tliat as vigorous health and 
its accompanying high spirits are larger elements 
of happiness than any other things whatever, the 
teaching how to maintain them is a teaching that 
yields in moment to no other whatever. And there° 
fore we assert that snch a course of physiology as is 
needful for the comprehension of its general truths, 
and then* bearings on daily conduct, is an all-essen- 
tial part of a rational education. 

Strange that the assertion should need making ! 
Stranger still that it should need defending ! Yet 
are there not a few by whom such a proposition 
will be received with something approaching to de- 
rision. Men who would blush if caught saying 
Iphigenia instead of Iphigenia, or would resent as 
an insult any imputation of ignorance respecting 
the fabled labours of a fabled demi-god, show not 
the slightest shame in confessing that they do not 
know where the Eustachian tubes are, what are the 
actions of the sjtinal cord, what is the normal rate 
of pulsation, or how the lungs are inflated. While 
anxious that their sons should be well up in the su- 
perstitions of two thousand years ago, they care not 
that they should be taught anything about the 
structure and functions of their own bodies — nay, 
would even disapprove such instruction. So over- 
whelming is the influence of established routine! 
So terribly in our education does the ornamental 
override the useful ! 

We need not insist on the value of that knowl- 
edge which aids indirect self-preservation by facili- 



44 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

tating the gaining of a livelihood. Tliis is admitted 
by all ; and, indeed, by the mass is perhaps too 
exclusively regarded as the end of education. But 
while every one is ready to endorse the abstract 
proposition that instruction fitting youths for the 
business of life is of high importance, or even to 
consider it of supreme importance ; yet scarcely 
any inquire what instruction will so fit them. It is 
true that reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught 
with an intelligent appreciation of their uses ; but 
when we have said this we have said nearly all. 
While the great bulk of what else is acquired has 
no bearing on the industrial activities, an immensi- 
ty of information that has a direct bearing on the 
industrial activities is entirely passed over. 

For, leaving out only some very small classes, 
what are all men employed in ? They are employ- 
ed in the production, preparation, and distribution 
of commodities. And on what does efficiency in 
the production, preparation, and distribution of 
commodities depend ? It depends on the use of 
methods fitted to the respective natures of these 
commodities ; it depends on an adequate knowledge 
of their physical, chemical, or vital properties, as 
the case niay be ; tliat is, it depends on Science. 
This order of knowledge, which is in great part ig- 
nored in our school courses, is the order of knowl- 
edge underlying the right performance of all those 
processes by which civilized life is made possible. 
Undeniable as is this truth, and thrust upon us ass 
it is at every turn, there seems to be no living con« 



NEEDS OF THE CONSTRUCTOR 45 

Bcioiisness of it : its very familiarity makes it unre- 
garded. To give due weiglit to our argument, wc 
must, tlierefore, realize tins truth to the reader by 
a rapid review of the facts. 

For all the liigher arts of construction, pome ac«> 
quaintance with Mathematics is indispensable. The 
village carpenter, who, lacking rational instruction, 
lays out his work by empirical rules learnt in his ap- 
prenticeship, equally with the builder of a Britan- 
nia Bridge, makes hourly reference to the laws of 
quantitative relations. The surveyor on whose sur- 
vey the land is purchased ; the architect in design- 
ing a mansion to be built on it ; the builder in pre- 
paring his estimates ; his foreman in laying out the 
foundations ; the masons in cutting the stones ; and 
the various artisans who put up the fittings ; are all 
guided by geometrical truths. Railway-making {» 
regulated from beginning to end by mathematics ; 
alike in the preparation of plans and sections ; in 
staking out the line ; in the mensuration of cuttings 
and embankments ; in the designing, estimating, 
and building of bridges, culverts, viaducts, tunnels, 
stations. And similarly with the harbours, docks, 
piers, and various engineering and architectural 
works that fringe the coasts and overspread the face 
of the country ; as well as the mines that run un- 
derneath it. Out of geometry, too, as applied to 
astronomy, the art of navigation has grown ; and 
so, by this science, has been made possible that 
enormous foreign commerce which supports a large 
part of our population, and supplies us with many 



i6 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

necessaries and most of onr luxuries. And now-a- 
days even the farmer, for the correct laying out of 
his drains, has recourse to the level — that is, to ge- 
©metrical principles. When from those divisions of 
mathematics which deal with space^ and nutniber^ 
some small smattering of which is given in schools, 
we turn to that other division which deals with 
force^ of which even a smattering is scarcely ever 
given, we meet with another large class of activities 
which this science presides over. On the applica- 
tion of rational mechanics depends the success of 
nearly all modern manufacture. The properties of 
the lever, the wheel and axle, &c., are involved in 
every machine — ^every machine is a solidified me- 
chanical theorem ; and to machinery in these times 
we owe nearly all j^roduction. Trace the history 
of the breakfast-roll. Tlie soil out of which it came 
was drained with machine-made tiles ; the surface 
was turned over by a macliine ; the seed was pnt 
in by a machine ; the wheat was reaped, thrashed, 
and winnowed by machines ; by machinery it was 
ground and bolted ; and had the flour been sent to 
Gosport, it might have been made into biscuits by 
a machine. Look round the room in which you sit. 
If modern, probably the bricks in its walls were 
machine-made ; by machinery the flooring was 
sawn and planed, the mantel-shelf sawn and pol- 
ished, the paper-hangings made and printed ; thp 
veneer on the table, the turned legs of the chairs, 
the carpet, the curtains, are all products of ma* 
chinery. And your clothing — plain, figured, ol 



VALUE OF MECHANICAL SCIENCES. 4V 

printed- is it not wliolly woven, nay, perhaps even 
sewed, by machinery ? And the volume you are 
reading — are not its leaves fabricated by one ma- 
chine and covered with these words by another? 
Add to which that for the means of distribntiou 
over both land and sea, we are similarly indebted. 
And then let it be remembered that according as 
tlie principles of mechanics are well or ill used to 
these ends, comes success or failure — individual and 
national. The engineer who misapplies his formula 
for the strength of materials, builds a bridge that 
breaks down. The manufacturer whose apparatus 
is badly devised, cannot compete with another whose 
apparatus wastes less in friction and inertia. The 
ship-builder adhering to the old model, is outsailed 
by one who builds on the mechanically-justified 
wave-line principle. And as the ability of a nation 
to hold its own against other nations depends on 
the skilled activity of its units, we see that on such 
knowledge may turn the national fate. Judge then 
the worth of mathematics. 

Pass next to Physics. Joined with mathemat- 
ics, it has given us the steam-engine, which does 
the work of millions of labourer^. Tliat section of 
physics which deals with the laws of heat, has taught 
us how to economise fuel in our various industries ; 
how to increase the produce of our smelting furnaces 
by substituting the hot for the cold blast ; how to 
Ventilate our mines ; how to prevent explosions by 
using the safety-lamp ; and, through the thennom- 
eter, how to regulate innumerable processes. Tliat 
3 



(kS WIIA.T KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOETH ? 

division which has the phenomena of light for its 
subject, gives eyes to the old and the myopic ; aids 
through the microscope in detecting diseases and 
adulterations ; and by improved lighthouses pre= 
vents sliipwrecks. Researches in electricity and 
magnetism have saved incalculable life and prop- 
erty by the compass ; have subserved sundry arts by 
the electrotype ; and now, in the telegraph, have 
supplied us wdth the agency by which for the future 
all mercantile transactions will be regulated, politi- 
cal intercourse carried on, and perhaps national 
quarrels often avoided. While in the details of in- 
door life, from the improved kitchen-range up to 
the stereoscope on the drawing-room table, the ap- 
plications of advanced physics underlie our comforts 
and gratifications. 

Still more numerous are the bearings of Chem- 
istry on those activities by which men obtain the 
means of living. The bleacher, the dyer, the calico- 
printer, are severally occupied in processes that are 
well or ill done according as they do or do not con- 
form to chemical laws. The economical reduction 
from their ores of copper, tin, zinc, lead, silver, iron, 
are in a great measure questions of chemistry. Su- 
gar-refining, gas-making, soap-boiliug, gunpowder 
manufacture, are operations all partly chemical ; as 
are also those by which are produced glass and por- 
celain. Whether the distiller's wort stops at the 
alcoholic fermentation or passes into the acetous, is 
a chemical question on which hangs his profit or 
loss and the brewer, if his business is sufficiently' 



CHEMISTRY AND AGKICULTUKE. 49 

large, finds it j)ay to keep a chemist on his premises. 
Glance through a work on technology, and it be- 
comes at once apparent that there is now scarcely 
any process in, the arts or manufactures over some 
part of which chemistry does not preside. And 
tlien, lastly, we come to the fact that in these times, 
agriculture, to be profitably cari-ied on, must liaA'e 
like guidance. The analysis of manures and soils ; 
their adaptations to each other ; the use of gypsum 
or other substance for fixing ammonia ; the utiliza- 
tion of coprolites ; the production of artificial ma- 
nures — all these are boons of chemistry which it 
behoves the farmer to acquaint himself with. Bo 
it in the lucifer match, or in disinfected sewage, or 
in photographs — in bread made without fermenta- 
tion, or perfumes extracted from refuse, we may 
perceive that chemistry affects all our industries ; 
and that, by consequence, knowledge of it concerns 
every one who is directly or indirectly connected 
with our industries. 

And then the science of life — Biology : does not 
this, too, bear fundamentally upon these processes 
of indirect self-preservation ? With what we ordi- 
narily call manufactures, it has, indeed, little con- 
nexion ; but with the all-essential manufacture — ■ 
that of food — it is inseparably connected. As agri- 
culture must conform its methods to the phenomena 
of vegetable and animal life, it follows necessarily 
that the science of these phenomena is the rational 
basis of agriculture. Various biological truths have 
indeed been empirically established and acted upon 



50 WPIAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH! 

by farmers while yet there has been no conception 
of them as science : snch as that particnhir ma- 
nures are suited to particular plants ; that crops of 
certain kinds unfit the soil for other crops ; that 
horses cannot do good work on poor food ; that such 
and such diseases of cattle and slieep are caused by 
such and such conditions. These, and the every' 
day knowledge which the agriculturist gains by ex- 
perience respecting the right management of plants 
and animals, constitute his stock of biological facts ; 
on the largeness of which greatly depends his suc- 
cess. And as these biological facts, scanty, indefi- 
nite, rudimentary, though they are, aid him so es- 
sentially ; judge what must be the value to him of 
such facts when they become positive, definite, and 
exhaustive. Indeed, even now we may see the 
benefits that rational biology is conferring on him. 
The truth that the production of animal heat im- 
plies waste of substance, and that, therefore, pre- 
venting loss of heat prevents the need for extra 
food — a purely theoretical conclusion — now guides 
the fattening of cattle : it is found that by keeping 
cattle warm, fodder is saved. Similarly with re- 
spect to variety of food. The experiments of phys- 
iologists have shown that not only is change of diet 
beneficial, but that digestion is facilitated by a mix- 
ture of ingredients in each meal : both which truths 
are now influencing cattle-feeding. The discovery 
that a disorder known as " the staggers," of which 
many thousands of sheep have died annually, is 
caused by an entozoon which presses on the brain ; 



IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE TO FARMERS. 51 

caiid tliat if the creature is extracted through the 
softened place in the skull which marks its position, 
the sheep usually recovers ; is another debt which 
agriculture owes to biology. When we observe th€i 
marked contrast between our farming and farming 
on the Continent, and remember that this contrast 
is mainly due to the far greater influence science 
has had upon farming here than there ; and when 
we see how, daily, competition is making the adop^ 
tion of scientific methods more general and neces- 
sary ; we shall rightly infer that very soon, agricul- 
tural success in England will be impossible without 
a competent knowledge of animal and vegetable 
physiology. 

Yet one more science have we to note as bear- 
ing directly on industrial success — the Science of 
Society. Without knowing it, men who daily look 
at the state of the money-market, glance over prices 
current, discuss the probable crops of corn, cotton, 
sugar, wool, silk, weigh the chances of war, and 
from all those data decide on their mercantile opcr^ 
ations, are students of social science : empirical and 
blundering students it may be ; but still, students 
who gain the prizes or are plucked of their profits, 
according as they do or do not reach the right con- 
clusion. [Not only the manufacturer and the mer- 
chant must guide their transactions by calculations 
of supply and demand, based on numerous facts, 
and tacitly recognising sundry general principles 
of social action ; but even the retailer must do the 
like : his prosperity very greatly depending upon 



52 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTII ? 

the correctness of his judgments respecting the fu, 
ture wholesale prices and the futnre rates of con' 
sumption. Manifestly, all who take part in the en- 
tangled commercial activities of a community, are 
vitally interested in understanding the laws accord- 
ing to which those activities vary. 

Til us, to all such as are occupied in the produc- 
tion, exchange, or distribution of commodities, ac- 
quaintance with science in some of its departments, 
is of fundamental importance. Whoever is imme- 
diately or remotely implicated in any form of indus- 
try (and few are not) has a direct interest in under- 
standing something of the mathematical, physical, 
and chemical properties of things ; perhaps, also, 
has a direct interest in biology ; and certainly has 
in sociology. Whether he does or does not succeed 
well in that indirect self-preservation which we call 
getting a good livelihood, depends in a great degree 
on his knowledge of one or more of these sciences : 
not, it may be, a rational knowledge ; but still a 
knowledge, though empirical. For what we call 
learning a business, really implies learning the sci- 
ence involved in it ; though not perhaps under the 
name of science. And hence a grounding in science 
is of great importance, both because it prepares for 
all this, and because rational knowledge has an im- 
mense superiority over empirical knowledge. More- 
over, not only is it that scientific culture is requisite 
for each, that he may understand the how and the 
why of the things and processes with which he is con- 
>*^rned as makei- or distributor : but it is often of 



THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY. 5d 

much moment that he should understand the how and 
the whi/ of various other things and processes. In 
this age of joint-stock undertakings, nearly every 
man above the labourer is interested as capitalist in, 
some other occupation than his own ; and, as thus in- 
terested, his profit or loss often depends on his knowl- 
edge of the sciences bearing on this other occupa- 
tion. Here is a mine, in the sinking of which many 
shareholders ruined themselves, from not knowing 
that a certain fossil belonged to the old red sand- 
stone, below which no coal is found. Not many 
years ago, 20,000?. was lost in the prosecution of a 
scheme for collecting the alcohol that distils from 
bread in baking : all which would have been saved 
to the subscribers, had they known that less than a 
hundredth part by weight of the flour is changed in 
fermentation. Numerous attempts have been made 
to construct electro-magnetic engines, in the hope 
of superseding steam ; but had those who supplied 
the money, understood the general law of the cor- 
relation and equivalence of forces, they might 
have had better balances at their bankers. Daily 
are men induced to aid in carrying out inventions 
which a mere tyro in science could show to be fu- 
tile. Scarcely a locality but has its history of for- 
tunes thrown away over some impossible project. 

And if already the loss from want of science is 
so frequent and so great, still greater and more fre° 
quent will it be to those who hereafter lack science. 
Just as fast as productive processes become more 
scientific, which competition will inevitably mak^ 



B4: WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTH ? 

them do; and just as fast as joint-stock iindertak- 
ings spread, which they certainly w^ill ; so fast will 
scientific knowledge grow necessary to every one. 

That which our school courses leave almost en- 
iirely out, wo thus find to he that which most nearly 
concerns the business of life. All our industries 
would cease, were it not for that information which, 
men begin to acquire as they best may after their 
education is said to be finished. And were it not 
for this information, that has been from age to age 
accumulated and spread by unofficial means, these 
industries would never have existed. Had there 
been no teaching but such as is given in our public 
schrals, England would now be what it was in 
feudal times. That increasing acquaintance with 
the laws of phenomena which has through success- 
ive ages enabled us to subjugate Nature to our 
needs, and in these days gives the common labourer 
comforts which a few centuries ago kings could not 
purchase, is scarcely in any degree owed to the ap- 
pointed means of instructing our youth. The vital 
knowledge — that by which we have gi-own as a na- 
tion to what we are, and which now underlies our 
whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself 
taught in nooks and corners ; while the ordained 
Xgencies for teaching have been mumbling little 
^Ise but dead formulas. 

We come now to the third great division of hu 
man activities — a division for which no preparation 
whatever is made. If by some strange chance not 



TREATMENT CF OFFSPRING. 55 

a vestige of us descended to the remote future save 
a pile of our school-books or some college examina- 
tion papers, we may imagine how puzzled an anti- 
quarj of the period woukl be on finding in them nc 
indication that the learners were ever likely to be 
parents. " This must have been the curriculum for 
their celibates," we may fancy him concluding. 
" 1 perceive here an elaborate preparation for many 
things : especially for reading the books of extinct 
nations and of co-existing nations (from which in- 
deed it seems clear that these people had very little 
worth reading in their own tongue) ; but I find no 
reference whatever to the bringing up of children. 
They could not have been so absurd as to omit all 
training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evi- 
dently then, this was the school course of one of 
their monastic orders." 

Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that 
though on the treatment of offspring depend their 
lives or deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin ; 
yet not one word of instruction on the treatment of 
offspring is ever given to those who will hereafter 
be parents ? Is it not monstrous that the fate of a 
new generation should be left to the chances of un- 
reasoning custom, impulse, fancy — ^joined with the 
suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced 
counsel of grandmothers ? If a merchant com-' 
menced business without any knowledge of arith*' 
metic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his 
folly, and look for disastrous consequences. Or il', 
before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgi- 



56 WHAT knowlp:dge is of most woktii ? 

cal operator, we should wonder at his audacity and 
pity his patients. But that parents should begin 
the difficult task of rearing children without ever 
having given a thought to the principles — physical, 
moral, or intellectual — which ought to guide them^ 
excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for 
their victims. 

To tens of thousands that are killed, add hun- 
dreds of thousands that survive with feeble consti- 
tutions, and millions that grow up with constitu- 
tions not so strong as they should be ; and you will 
have some idea of the curse inflicted on their off- 
spring by parents ignorant of the laws of life. Do 
but consider for a moment that the regimen to 
which children are subject is hourly telling upon 
them to tlieir life-long injury or beneflt ; and that 
there are twenty ways of going wrong to one w^ay 
of going right ; and you will get some idea of the 
enormous mischief that is almost everywhere inflict- 
ed by the thoughtless, haphazard system in com- 
mon use. Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed 
in some flimsy short dress, and be allowed to go 
playing about with limbs reddened by cold ? Tlie 
decision will tell on his whole future existence — 
either in illnesses ; or in stunted growth ; or in de- 
ficient energy ; or in a maturity less vigorous than it 
ought to have been, and consequent hindrances to suc- 
cess and happiness. Are children doomed to a monot- 
onous dietary, or a dietary that is deficient in nutri- 
tiveness ? Their ultimate physical power and their 
efficiency as men and women, will inevitably be 



RESULTS OF PARENTAL IGNOEANCE. 57 

more or less diminished by it. Are they forbidden 
vociferous play, or (bein<j^ too ill-clothed to bear ex- 
posure), are they kept in-tloors in cold weather I 
They are certain to fall below that measure of health 
and strength to which they would else have attain- 
ed. When sons and daughters grow up sickly and 
feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a 
misfortune — as a visitation of Providence. Tliink- 
ing after the prevalent chaotic fasliion, they assume 
that these evils come without causes ; or that the 
causes are supernatural. Nothing of the kind. In 
some cases the causes are doubtless inherited ; but 
in most cases foolish regulations are the causes. 
Yery generally parents themselves are responsible 
for all this pain, this debility, this depression, this 
misery. They have undertaken to control tlie lives 
of their offspring from hour to hour ; with cruel 
carelessness they have neglected to learn anything 
about these vital processes which they are unceas- 
ingly affecting by their commands and prohibitions ; 
in utter ignorance of the simplest physiologic laws, 
they have been year by year undermining the con- 
stitutions of their children ; and have so inflicted 
disease and premature death, not only on them but 
on their descendants. 

Equally great are the ignorance and the conse- 
quent injury, when we turn from physical training 
to moral training. Consider the young mother and 
her nursery legislation. But a few years ago she 
was at school, where her memory was crammed 
with words, and names, and dates, and her reflect' 



58 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

ive faculties scarcely in the slightest degi-ee exer^ 
cised — where not one idea was given her respecting 
the methods of dealing with the opening mind of 
childhood ; and where her discipline did not in the 
least fit her for thinhing out methods of her own, 
rhe intervening years have been passed in practis- 
ing music, in fancy-work, in novel-reading, and in 
party-going : no thought having yet been given to 
the grave responsibilities of maternity ; and scarcely 
any of that solid intellectual culture obtained which 
would be some preparation for such responsibilities. 
And now see her with an unfolding human charac- 
ter committed to her charge — see her profoundly 
ignorant of the phenomena with which she has to 
deal, undertaking to do that which can be done but 
imperfectly even with the aid of the profoundest 
knowledge. She knows nothing about the nature 
of the emotions, their order of evolution, their func- 
tions, or where use ends and abuse begins. She is 
under the impression that some of the feelings are 
wholly bad, which is not true of any one of them ; 
and that others are good, however far they may be 
carried, which is also not true of any one of them. 
And then, ignorant as she is of that with which she 
has to deal, she is equally ignorant of the effects 
that will be produced on it by this or that treat- 
ment. What can be more inevitable than the dis- 
astrous results we see hourly arising ? Lacking 
knowledge of mental phenomena, with their causes 
and consequences, her interference is frequently 
more mischievous than absolute passivity would 



EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG MOTHER. ' 59 

iiave been. Tliis and that kind of action, wliieli 
are quite normal and beneficial, slie perpetually 
thwarts ; and so diminishes the child's happiness 
and profit, injures its temper and her own, and 
produces estrangement. Deeds which she thinks 
it desirable to encourage, she gets performed bv 
threats and bribes, or by exciting a desire for ap- 
plause : considering little what the inward motive 
may be, so long as the outward conduct conforms ; 
and thus cultivating hypocrisy, and fear, and self- 
ishness, in place of good feeling. AVhile insisting 
on truthfulness, she constantly sets an example of 
untruth, by threatening penalties which she does 
not inflict. "While inculcating self-control, she hour- 
ly visits on lier little ones angry scoldings for acts 
that do not call for them. She has not the re- 
motest idea that in the nursery, as in the world, 
that alone is the truly salutary discipline which 
visits on all conduct, good and bad, the natural 
consequences — the consequences, pleasurable or 
painful, which in the nature of things such conduct 
tends to bring. Being thus without theoretic guid- 
ance, and quite incapable of guiding herself by 
tracing the mental processes going on in her chil- 
dren, her rule is impulsive, inconsistent, mischiev- 
ous, often, in- the highest degree ; and would indeed 
be generally ruinous, were it not that the over^ 
whelming tendency of the growing mind to assume 
the moral type of the race, usually subordinates all 
minor influences. 

And then the culture of the intellect — is not 



CO WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

this, too, mismanaged in a similar manner ? Grant 
that the phenomena of intelligence conform to 
laws ; grant that the evolntion of intelligence in a 
child also conforms to laws ; and it follows inevita- 
hly that education can be rightly guided only by a 
knowledge of these laws. To suppose that you can 
properly regulate this process of forming and accu- 
mulating ideas, without understanding the nature 
of the process, is absurd. How widely, then, must 
teaching as it is, difler from teaching as it should 
be ; when hardly any parents, and but few teachers, 
know anything about psychology. As might be 
expected, the system is grievously at fault, alike in 
matter and in manner. While the right class of 
facts is withheld, the wrong class is forcibly admin- 
istered in the wrong way and in the wrong order. 
With that common limited idea of educatiou which 
confines it to knowledge gained from books, parents 
thrust primers into the hands of their little ones 
years too soon, to their great injury. Not recog- 
nising the truth that the function of books is sup- 
plementary — that they form an indirect means to 
knowledge when direct means fail — a means of see- 
ing through other men what you cannot see for 
yourself ; they are eager to give second-hand facts 
in place of first-hand facts. Not perceiving the 
enormous value of that spontaneous education 
which goes on in early years — not perceiving that 
a child's restless observation, instead of being ig- 
nored or checked, should be diligently administered 
to, and made as accurate and complete as possible ; 



IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 61 

tiiey insist on occupying its eyes and thoughts with 
things that are, for the time being, incomprehensi- 
ble and repugnant. Possessed by a superstition 
which worships the symbols of knowledge instead 
of the knowledge itself, they do not see that only 
when his acquaintance with the objects and processes 
of the household, the streets, and the fields, is be- 
coming tolerably exhaustive — only then should a 
child be introduced to the new sources of informa- 
tion which books supply : and this, not only because 
immediate cognition is of far greater value than 
mediate cognition ; but also, because the words 
contained in books can be rightly interpreted into 
ideas, only in proportion to the antecedent experi- 
ence of things. Observe next, that this formal in- 
struction, far too soon commenced, is carried on with 
])ut little reference to the laws of mental develop- 
ment. Intellectual progress is of necessity from the 
concrete to the abstract. But regardless of this, 
liighly abstract subjects, such as grammar, which 
should come quite late, are begun quite early. Po' 
litieal geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, 
and which should be an appendage of sociological 
studies, is commenced betimes ; while physical ge^ 
ography, comprehensible and comparatively attract- 
ive to a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly 
every subject dealt with is arranged in abno^-mal 
order : definitions, and rules, and principles being 
put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in 
the order of nature, through the study of cases. 
And then, pervading the whole, is the vicious sya 



62 WHA.T KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

tern of rote learning— a system of sacrificing the 
spirit to tlie letter. See the results, "What with 
perceptions unnaturally dulled by early thwarting, 
and a coerced attention to books — wliat with the 
mental confusion produced by teaching subjects be- 
fore they can be understood, and in each of them 
giving generalizations before the facts of which 
these are the generalizations — wdiat with making the 
pupil a mere passive recipient of other''s ideas, and 
not in the least leading him to be an active inquirer 
or self-instructor — and w^hat with taxing the facul- 
ties to excess ; there are very few minds that be- 
come as efficient as they might be. Examinations 
being once passed, books are laid aside ; the greater 
part of what has been acquired, being unorganized, 
soon drops out of recollection ; what remains is 
mostly inert — the art of applying knowledge not 
having been cultivated ; and there is but little 
power either of accurate observation or independent 
tliinking. To all which add, that while much of 
the information gained is of relatively small value, 
an immense mass of information of transcendent 
value is entirely passed over. 

Thus w^e find the facts to be such as might have 
been inferred d, priori. The training of children — 
physical, moral, and intellectual — is dreadfully de- 
fective. And in great measure it is so, because 
parents are devoid of that knowledge by which this 
training can alone be rightly guided. What is to be 
expected when one of the most intricate of problems 
is undertaken by those wdio have given scarcely a 



TASK OF UNFOLDING A HUMAN BKING. 63 

tliought to the principles on which its solution 
depends ? For shoe-making or honse-building, for 
the management of a ship or a locomotive-engine^ 
a long apprenticeship is needful. Is it, then, that 
the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, 
is so comparatively simple a process, that any one 
may superintend and regulate it with no prepara- 
tion whatever ? If not — if the process is with one 
exception more complex than any in Nature, and 
the task of administering to it one of surpassing 
difhculty ; is it not madness to make no provision 
for such a task ? Better sacrifice accomplishments 
than omit this all-essential instruction. When 
a« father, acting on false dogmas adopted with- 
out examination, has alienated his sons, driven them 
into rebellion by his harsh treatment, ruined them, 
and made himself miserable ; he might reflect that 
the study of Ethology would have been worth pur- 
suing, even at the cost of knowing nothing about 
^schylus. When a mother is mourning over a 
first-born that has sunk under the sequehie of scarlet- 
fever — when perhaps a candid medical man has 
confirmed her suspicion that her child would have 
recovered had not its system been enfeebled by 
over-study — when she is prostrate under the pangs 
of combined grief and remorse; it is but a small 
consolation that she can read Dante in the originaL 
Thus we see that for regulating the third great 
division of human activities, a knowledge of the 
laws of life is the one thing needful. Some ac- 
quaintance with the first principles of physiology 
4 



64 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTB ? 

and the elementary truths of psychology is indi& 
pensable for the right bringing np of children. We 
doubt not that this assertion will by many be read 
with a smile. Tliat parents in general should be 
3xpected to acquire a knowledge of subjects so 
abstruse, will seem to them an absurdity. And if 
we proposed that an exhaustive knowledge of these 
subjects should be obtained by all fathers and 
mothers, the absurdity would indeed be glaring 
enough. But we do not. General principles only, 
accompanied by such detailed illustrations as may 
be needed to make them understood, would suffice. 
And these might be readily taught — if not ration- 
ally, then dogmatically. Be this as it may, how- 
ever, here are the indisputable facts : — that the 
development of children in mind and body rigor- 
ously obeys certain laws ; that unless these laws are 
in some degree conformed to by parents, death is 
inevitable ; that unless they are in a great degree 
conformed to, there nnist result serious physical and 
mental defects ; and that only when they are com- 
pletely conformed to, can a perfect maturity be 
reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one 
day be parents, should not strive with some anxiety 
to learn what these laws are. 

From the parental functions let us pass now to 
the functions of the citizen. We have here to in- 
quire what knowledge best fits a man for the dis- 
3hargn of these functions. It cannot be alleged, 
ivs in the last case, that the need for knowledge 



WORTHLESSNESS OF ORDINARY HISTORY. 65 

fitting liim for these functions is wholly overlooked ; 
for our school courses contain certain studies which, 
nominally at least, bear upon political and social 
duties. Of these the only one that occupies a 
prominent place is History. 

But, as already more than once hinted, the his- 
toric information commonly given is almost value- 
less for purposes of guidance. Scarcely any of the 
facts set down in our school-histories, and very few 
even of those contained in the more elaborate works 
written for adults, give any clue to the right prin- 
ciples of political action. The biographies of 
monarchs (and our children commonly learn little 
else) throw scarcely any light upon the science of 
society. Familiarity with court intrigues, plots, 
usurpations, or the like, and with all the personali- 
ties accompanying them, aids very little in eluciv 
dating the principles on which national welttire 
de})ends. We read of some squabble for power, 
that it led to a pitched battle ; that such and such 
were the names of the generals and their leading 
subordinates ; that they had each so many thousand 
infantry and cavalry, and so many cannon ; tliat 
they arranged their forces in this and that order ; 
that they manoeuvred, attacked, and fell back in 
certain ways : tbat at this part of the day such dis- 
asters were sustained, and at that such advantagee 
gained ; that in one particular movement some 
leading officer fell, while in another a certain regi- 
ment was decimated ; that after all the changing 
fortunes of the fight, the victory was gained by this 



66 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTH ? 

or that army ; and that so many were killed and 
wounded on each side, and so many captured by 
the conquerors. And now, out of the accumulated 
details which make up the narrative, say which it 
is that helps you in deciding on your conduct as a 
citizen. Supposing even that you had diligently 
read, not only " The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the 
World," but accounts of all other battles that his- 
tory mentions ; how much more judicious would 
your vote be at the next election ? " But these are 
facts — interesting facts," you say. Without doubt 
they are facts (such, at least, as are not wholly or 
partially fictions) ; and to many they may be inter- 
esting facts. But this by no means implies that 
they are valuable. Factitious or morbid opinion 
often gives seeming value to things that have 
scarcely any. A tulipomaniac will not part with a 
choice bulb for its weight in gold. To another man 
an ugly piece of cracked old china seems his most 
desirable possession. And there are those who 
give high prices for the relics of celebrated mur- 
derers. Will it be contended that these tastes are 
any measures of value in the things that gratify 
them ? If not, then it must be admitted that the 
liking felt for certain classes of historical facts is 
no proof of their worth ; and that we must test their 
worth as we test the worth of other facts, by asking 
to what uses they are applicable. Were some one 
to tell you that your neighbour's cat kittened yes- 
terday, you would say the information was worth- 
less. Fact though it might be, you would say it 



a 



TKUE USES OF HISTORY. 67 

was an utterly useless fact — a fact that could in no 
way influence your actions in life — a fact that would 
not help you in learning how to live completely. 
Well, apply the same test to the great mass of his- 
torical facts, and you will get the same results 
They are facts from which no conclusions can be 
drawn — unorganizahle facts ; and therefore facts 
which can be of no service in establishing principles 
of conduct, which is the chief use of facts. Read 
them, if you like, for amusement ; but do not flatter 
yourself they are instructive. 

That which constitutes History, properly so 
called, is in great part omitted from works on the 
subject. Only of late years have historians com- 
menced giving us, in any considerable quantit}^, the 
truly valuable information. As in past ages the 
king was every thing and the people nothing ; so, 
in past histories the doings of the king fill the entire 
picture, to wdiich the national life forms but an ob- 
scure background. While only now, when the 
welfare of nations rather than of rulers is becoming 
the dominant idea, are historians beginning to oc- 
cupy themselves with the phenomena of social 
progress. That which it really concerns us to 
know, is the natural history of society. We want 
all facts which help us to understand how a nation 
has grown and organized itself. Among these, let 
us of course have an account of its government 5 
with as little as may be of gossip about the men 
who oflicered it, and as much as possible about the 
Btructure, principles, methods, prejudices, corrup* 



68 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOIi'iH? 

tions, &c., wliicli it exhibited : and let tliis account 
not only inchide the natnre and actions of the cen- 
tral government, but also those of local governments, 
down to their minutest ramifications. Let us of 
course also have a parallel description of the eccle- 
siastical government — its organization, its conduct, 
its power, its relations to the State : and accompany- 
ing this, the ceremonial, creed, and religious ideas 
— not only those nominally believed, but those 
really believed and acted upon. Let us at the same 
time be informed of the control exercised by class 
over class, as displayed in all social observances — 
in titles, salutations, and forms of address. Let us 
know, too^ what were all the other customs which 
regulated the popular life out of doors and in-doors : 
including those which concern the relations of the 
sexes, and the relations of parents to children. Tlie 
superstitions, also, from the more important myths 
down to the charms in common use, should be in- 
dicated. Next should come a delineation of the 
industrial system : showing to what extent the divi- 
sion of labour was carried ; how trades were regu- 
lated, whether by caste, guilds, or otherwise ; what 
was the connection between employers and em- 
ployed ; what were the agencies for distributing 
commodities, what were the means of communica- 
tion ; what was the circulating medium. Accom- 
panying all which should come an account of the 
Industrial arts technically considered : stating the 
processes in use, and the quality of the products. 
Further, the intellectual condition of the nation in 



HISTORY A DESCRIPTIVE SOCIOLOGY. C,9 

its various grades should be depicted : not only 
with respect to the kind and amount of education, 
but with respect to the progress made in science., 
and the prevailing manner of thinking. The degree 
of aesthetic culture, as displayed in architecture, 
sculpture, painting, dress, music, poetry, and fic- 
tion, should be described. Nor should there be 
omitted a sketch of the daily lives of the people — • 
their food, their homes, and their amusements. 
And lastly, to connect the whole, should be ex- 
hibited llio morals, theoretical and practical, of all 
classes : as indicated in their laws, habits, proverbs, 
deeds. All these facts, given with as much brevity 
as consists with clearness and accuracy, should be 
so grouped and arranged that they may be compre- 
hended in their ense7nble / and thus may be con- 
templated as mutually dependent parts of one great 
whole. Ilie aim should be so to present them that 
we may readily trace the coiisensus subsisting among 
them ; with the view of learning what social phe- 
nomena co-exist with what others. And then the 
corresponding delineations of succeeding ages should 
be so managed as to show us, as clearly as may be, 
how each belief, institution, custom, and arrange- 
ment was modified ; and how the consensus of 
preceding structures and functions was developed 
into the consensus of succeeding ones. Such alone 
is the kind of information respecting past times, 
which can be of service to the citizen for the regu- 
lation of his conduct. The only history that is of 
practical value, is what may be called Descriptive 



70 "WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

Sociology. And the highest office which the his- 
torian can discharge, is tliat of so narrating the 
lives of nations, as to furnish materials for a Com" 
parative Sociology ; and_^ for the subsequent deter= 
mination of the ultimate laws to which social phe-= 
nomena conform. 

But now mark, that even supposing an adequate 
stock of this truly valuable historical knowledge 
has been acquired, it is of comparatively little use 
witliout the key. And the key is to be found only 
in Science. Without an acquaintance with the 
general truths of biology and psychology, rational 
interpretation of social phenomena is impossible. 
Only in proportion as men obtain a certain rude, 
empirical knowledge of human nature, are they 
enabled to understand even the simplest facts of 
social life : as, for instance, the relation between 
supply and demand. And if not even the most 
elementary truths of sociology can be reached until 
some knowledge is obtained of how men generally 
think, feel, and act under given circumstances ; 
then it is manifest that there can be nothing like a 
wide comprehension of sociology, unless through a 
competent knowledge of man in all his faculties, 
bodily and mental. Consider the matter in the ab- 
stract, and this conclusion is self-evident. Tims : — 
Society is made up of individuals ; all that is done 
in society is done by the combined actions of indi- 
viduals ; and therefore, in individual actions only 
can be found the solutions of social phenomena. 
But the actions of individuals depend on the laMs 



SCIENCE THE KEY TO HISTOKV. 71 

of tlieir natures ; and tlieir actions cannot be under- 
stood nntil these laws are understood. These laws, 
however, when reduced to their simplest expres- 
sion, are found to dej^end on tlie laws of l)odj and 
mind in general. Hence it necessarily follows, that 
biology and psychology are indispensable as inter- 
preters of sociology. Or, to state the conclusions 
still more simply : — all social phenomena are phe- 
nomena of life — are the most complex manifesta- 
tions of life — are ultimately dependent on the laws 
of life — and can be understood only when the laws 
of life are understood. Thus, then, we see that for 
the regulation of this fourth division of human ac- 
tivities, we are, as before, dependent on Science. 
Of the knowledge commonly imparted in educa- 
tional courses, very little is of any service in guiding 
a man in his conduct as a citizen. Only a small 
part of the history he reads is of practical value ; 
and of this small part he is not prepared to make 
proper use. He commonly lacks not only the 
materials for, but the very conception of, descriptive 
sociology ; and he also lacks that knowledge of the 
organic sciences, M'ithout which even descriptive 
sociology can give him but little aid. 

And now we come to that remaining division of 
human life which includes the relaxations, pleasures, 
and amusements filling leisure hours. After con- 
sidering what training best fits for self-preservation, 
for the obtainment of sustenance, for the discharge 
of parental duties, and for the regulation of social 



72 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

and political conduct ; we have now to consider 
what training best fits for the miscellaneons ends 
not included hi these — for the enjoyments of Nature, 
of Literature, and of the Fine Arts, in all their 
forms. Postponing them as we do to things that hear 
more vitally upon human welfare ; and bringing 
everything, as we have, to the test of actual value ; 
it will perhaps be inferred that we are inclined to 
slight these less essential things. No greater mis- 
take could be made, however. We yield to none 
in the value we attach to aesthetic culture and its 
pleasures. Without painting, sculpture, music, 
poetry, and the emotions produced by natural 
beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm. 
So far from thinking that the training and gratifica- 
tion of the tastes are unimportant, we believe the 
time will come when they will occupy a much 
larger share of human life than now. When the 
forces of Nature have been fully conquered toman's 
use — when the means of production liave been 
brought to perfection — when labour has been econ- 
omized to the highest degree — ^^vhen education has 
been so systematized that a preparation for the more 
essential activities may be made with comparative 
rapidity — and when, consequently, there is a great 
increase of spare time ; then will the poetry, both 
of Art and Nature, rightly fill a large sj)ace in the 
minds of all. 

But it is one thing to admit that jesthetic cul- 
ture is in a high degree conducive to human hap- 
piness ; and another thing to admit that it is a 



RANK OF ESTHETIC CULT. RE. 73 

fundamental requisite to human happiness. How- 
ever important it may be, it must yield precedence 
to those kinds of culture which bear more directly 
upon the duties of life. As before hinted, literature 
and the fine arts are made possible by those activi- 
ties which make individual and social life possible ;• 
and manifestly, that which is made possible, must 
be postponed to that wliich makes it possible. A 
florist cultivates a plant for the sake of its flower ; 
and regards the roots and leaves as of value, chiefly 
because they are instrumental in producing the 
flower. But while, as an ultimate product, the 
flower is the thing to wliich everything else is 
subordinate, the florist very well knows that the 
root and leaves are intrinsically of greater impor- 
tance ; because on them the evolution of the flower 
depends. He bestows every care in rearing a healthy 
plant ; and knows it would be folly if, in his anx- 
iety to obtain the flower, he were to neglect the 
plant. Similarly in the case before us. Architec- 
ture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, &c., may 
be truly called the eiflorescence of civilized life. 
But even supposing them to be of such transcendent 
worth as to subordinate the civilized life out of wliich 
they grow (which can hardly be asserted), it will 
still be admitted that the production of a healthy 
civilized life must be the first consideration ; and 
that the knowledge conducing to this must occupy 
the highest place. 

And here we see most distincfly the vice of our 
educational system. It neglects the plant for the 



74: WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

sake of the flower. In anxiety for elegance, it for- 
gets substance. While it gives no knowledge con- 
ducive to self-preservation — while of knowledge 
that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the 
rudiments, and leaves the greater part to be picked 
up any how in after life — while for the discharge 
of parental functions it makes not the slightest pro- 
vision — and while for the duties of citizenship it 
prepares by imparting a mass of facts, most of 
which are irrelevant, and the rest without a key ; 
it is diligent in teaching every thing that adds to 
refinement, polish, eclat. However fully we may 
admit that extensive acquaintance with modern 
languages is a valuable accomplishment, which, 
through reading, conversation, and travel, aids in 
giving a certain finish ; it by no means follows that 
tliis result is rightly purchased at the cost of that 
vitally important knowledge sacrificed to it. Sup- 
posing it true that classical education conduces to 
elegance and correctness of style ; it caimot be said 
that elegance and correctness of style are com- 
parable in importance to a familiarity with the 
principles that should guide the rearing of children. 
Grant that the taste may be greatly improved by 
reading all the poetry written in extinct languages ; 
yet it is not to be inferred that such improvement 
of taste is equivalent in value to an acquaintance 
with the laws of health. Accomplishments, the fine 
arts, helles-lettres, and all those things which, as we 
Bay, constitute tiie efflorescence of civilization, 
should be wholly subordinate to that knowledge 



SCIENCE UNDERLIES THE FINE ARTS. lo 

and discipline in which civilization rests. As they 
occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy 
the leisure part of education. 

Recognising thus the true position of gesthetics, 
and holding that while the cultivation of them 
should form a part of education from its commence- 
ment, such cultivation should be subsidiary ; we 
have now to inquire what knowledge is of most use 
to this end — what knowledge best fits for this 
remaining sphere of activity. To this question the 
answer is still the same as heretofore. Unexpected 
as the assertion may be, it is nevertheless true, that 
the highest Art of every kind is based upon Science 
— that without Science there can be neither perfect 
production nor full appreciation. Science, in that 
limited technical acceptation current in society, 
may not have been possessed by many artists of 
high repute ; but acute observers as they have 
been, they have always possessed a stock of those 
empirical generalizations which constitute science 
in its lowest phase ; and they have habitually fallen 
far below perfection, partly because their generali- 
zations were comparatively few and inaccurate. 
That science necessarily underlies the fine arts, be- 
comes manifest, a priori, when we remember that 
art-products are all more or less representative of 
objective or subjective phenomena ; that they can 
l>e true only in proportion as they conform to the 
laws of these phenomena ; and that before they can 
thus conform the artist must know what these laws 



7G WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

are. That this a i^riori conchision tallies with ex- 
perience we shall soon see. 

Youths preparing for the practice of sculpture, 
have to acquaint themselves with the bones and 
muscles of the human frame in their distribution, 
attachments, and movements. This is a portion 
of science ; and it has been found needful to impart 
it for the prevention of those many errors which 
sculptors who do not possess it commit. For the 
prevention of other mistakes, a knowledge of mechan- 
ical principles is requisite ; and such knowledge not 
being usually possessed, grave mechanical mistakes 
are frequently made. Take an instance. For the 
stability of a figure it is needful that the perpen- 
dicular from the centre of gravity — " the line of 
direction," as it is called — should fall within the 
base of support ; and hence it happens, that when 
a man assumes the attitude known as " standing at 
ease," in which one leg is straightened and the 
other relaxed, the line of direction falls within the 
foot of the straightened leg. But sculj^tors unfa- 
miliar with the theory of equilibrium, not un- 
commonly so represent this attitude, that the line 
of direction falls midway between the feet. Igno- 
rance of the laws of momentum leads to analogous 
errors : as witness the admired Discobolus, which, 
as it is posed, must inevitably fall forward the 
moment the quoit is delivered. 

In painting, the necessity for scientific knowl- 
edge, empirical if not rational, is still more con- 
spicuous. In what consists the grotesqueness of 



USES OF SCIENCE TO THE PAINTER. i i 

Chinese pictures, unless in their utter disregard of 
the laws of appearances — in their absurd linear 
perspective, and their want of aerial perspective ? 
In wdiat are the drawings of a child so faulty, if not 
in a similar absence of truth — an absence arising, 
in great part, from ignorance of the way in which 
the aspects of things vary with the conditions ? 
Do but remember the books and lectures by which 
students are instructed ; or consider the criticisms 
of Euskin ; or look at the doings of the Pre- 
Eaffiielites ; and you will see that progress in 
painting implies increasing knowledge of how 
effects in Nature are produced. The most diligent 
observation, if not aided by science, fails to preserve 
from error. Every painter w^ill indorse the asser- 
tion that unless it is known what a]ipearances must 
exist under given circumstances, they often will not 
be perceived ; and to know what appearances must 
exist, is, in so far, to understand the science of 
appearances. From want of science Mr. J. Lewis^ 
careful painter as he is, casts the shadow of a lattice- 
window in sharply-defined lines upon an opposite 
wall ; which he would not have done, had he been 
familiar with the phenomena of penumbrse. From 
want of science, Mr. Rosetti, catching sight of a 
peculiar iridescence displayed by certain hairy 
surfaces under particular lights (an iridescence 
caused by the diifraction of light in passing the 
hairs), commits the error of showing this iridescence 
on surfaces and in positions where it could not 
occur. 



78 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOKTH ? 

To say that- music, too, has need of scientific aid 
will seem still more snrprising. Yet it is demon- 
strable that nnisic is but an idealization of the nat- 
ural language of emotion ; and that consequently, 
nmsic must be good or bad according as it conforms 
to the laws of this natural language. The various 
inflections of voice wdiich accompany feelings of 
diiferent kinds and intensities, have been shown to 
be the germs out of which music is developed. It 
has been further shown, that these inflections and 
cadences are not accidental or arbitrary ; but that 
they are determined by certain general principles 
of vital action ; and that their expressiveness de- 
pends on this. Whence it follows that musical 
phrases and the melodies built of them, can be ef- 
fective only when they are in harmony with these 
general principles. It is difficult here properly to 
illustrate this position. But perhaps it will suffice 
to instance the swarms of worthless ballads that in- 
fest drawing-rooms, as compositions which science 
would forbid. They sin against science by setting 
to music ideas that are not emotional enough to 
prompt musical expression ; and they also sin 
against science by using musical phrases that have 
no natural relation to the ideas expressed : even 
where these are emotional. They are bad because 
they are untrue. And to say they are untrue, is to 
say they are unscientific. 

Even in poetry "the same thing holds. Like 
music, poetry has its root in those natural modes of 
expression which accompany deep feeling. Its 



SCIENCE DEALS WITn MUSIC AJSTD POETRY. TO 

rhythm, its strong and numerous metaphors, its hj- 
perboles, its violent inversions, are simply exaggera- 
tions of the traits of excited speech. To be good, 
therefore, poetry must pay respect to those laws of 
nervous action which excited speech obeys. In in= 
tensifying and combining the traits of excited speech, 
it must have due regard to proportion — must not 
use its appliances without restriction ; but, where 
the ideas are least emotional, must use the forms of 
poetical expression sparingly ; must use them more 
freely as the emotion rises ; and must carry them 
all to their greatest extent only where the emotion 
reaches a climax. The entire contravention of these 
principles results in bombast or doggerel. The in- 
sufhcient respect for them is seen in didactic poetry. 
And it is because they are rarely fully obeyed, that 
we have so much poetry that is inartistic. 

Not only is it that the artist, of whatever kind, 
cannot produce a truthful work without he under- 
stands the laws of the phenomena he represents ; 
but it is that he must also understand how the 
minds of spectators or listeners will be affected by 
the several peculiarities of his work — a question in 
psychology. What impression any given art-prod- 
uct generates, manifestly depends upon the mental 
natures of those to whom it is presented ; and as all 
mental natures have certain general principles in 
common, there must result certain corresponding 
general principles on which alone art-products can 
be successfully framed. These general principles 
cannot be fully understood and applied, unless tha 



80 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WOETH ? 

artist sees how they follow from the laws of mind. 
To ask whether the composition of a picture is good, 
IS really to ask how the perceptions and feelings of 
observers will be aifected by it. To ask whether a 
drama is well constructed, is to ask whether its sit- 
uations are so arranged as duly to consult the power 
of attention of an audience, and duly to avoid over- 
taxing any one class of feelings. Equally in arrang- 
ing the leading divisions of a poem or fiction, and 
in combining the words of a single sentence, the 
goodness of the effect depends upon the skill with 
which the mental energies and susceptibilities of 
the reader are economized. Every artist, in the 
course of his education and after-life, accumulates a 
stock of maxims by which his practice is regulated, 
Trace such maxims to their roots, and you find they 
inevitably lead you down to psychological princi- 
ples. And only when the artist rationally under- 
stands these psychological principles and their va- 
rious corollaries, can he work in harmony with 
them. 

We do not for a moment believe that science 
will make an artist. While we contend that the 
leading laws both of objective and subjective phe- 
nomena must be understood l)y him, we by no 
means contend that knowledge of such laws will 
serve in place of natural perception. Not only the 
poet, but also the artist of every type, is born, not 
made. What we assert is, that innate faculty alono 
will not suffice ; but must have the aid of organized 
knowledge. Intuition will do much, but it will not 



SCIENCE NECESSARY TO APPRECIATE ART. 81 

do all. Only when Genius is married to Science 
can the higlicst results be produced. 

As we have above asserted, Science is necessary 
not only for the most successful production, but 
also for the full appreciation of the fine arts. In 
wdiat consists the greater ability of a man than of 
a child to perceive the beauties of a picture ; unless 
it is in his more extended knowledge of those truths 
in nature or life which the picture renders ? How 
happens the cultivated gentleman to enjoy a fine 
poem so much more than a boor does ; if it is not 
because his wider acquaintance with objects and ac- 
tions enables him to see in the poem much that the 
boor cannot see ? And if, as is here so obvious, 
there must be some familiarity with the things rep- 
resented, before the representation can be appreci- 
ated ; then the representation can be completely 
appreciated, only in proportion as the things repre- 
sented are completely understood. The fact is, that 
every additional truth which a work of art express- 
es, gives an additional pleasure to the percipient 
mind — a pleasure that is missed by those ignorant 
of this truth. The more realities an artist indicates 
in any given amount of work, the more faculties 
does he appeal to ; the more numerous associated 
ideas does he suggest ; the more gratification does 
he afford. But to receive this gratification the 
spectator, listener, or reader, must know the reali- 
ties which the artist has indicated ; and to know 
these realities is to know so much science. 

And now let us not overlook the further great 



82 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

fact, tliat not only does science underlie sculpture, 
painting, music, poetry, but that science is itself 
poetic. The current opinion that science and poet- 
ry are opposed is a delusion. It is doubtless true 
that as states of consciousness, cognition and emo- 
tion tend to exclude each other. And it is doubt- 
less also true that an extreme activity of the reflect- 
ive powers tends to deaden the feelings ; while an 
extreme activity of the feelings tends to deaden the 
reflective powers : in which sense, indeed, all orders 
of activity are antagonistic to each other. But it 
is not true that the facts of science are unpoetical ; 
or that the cultivation of science is necessarily un- 
friendly to the exercise of imagination or the love 
of the beautiful. On the contrary science opens up 
realms of poetry where to the unscientiflc all is a 
blank. Those engaged in scientific researches con- 
stantly show us that they realize not less vividly, 
but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their 
subjects. "Whoever will dip into Hugh Miller's 
works on geology, or read Mr. Lewes's " Seaside 
Studies," will perceive that science excites poetry 
rather than extinguishes it. And whoever will con- 
template the life of Goethe will see that the poet 
and the man of science can co-exist in equal activi- 
ty. Is it not, indeed, an absuid and almost a sacri- 
legious belief that the more a man studies Nature 
the less he reveres it ? Think you that a drop of 
water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of 
water, loses anything in the eye of the physicist 
who knows, that its elements are held together by a 



SCIENCE ITSELF POETIC. 83 

force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a 
flash of lightning ? Think you that what is care- 
lessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere 
snow-flake, does not suggest higher associations to 
one who has seen through a microscope the won- 
drously varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals ? 
Think you that the rounded rock marked with par- 
allel scratches calls up as much poetry in an igno- 
rant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows 
that over this rock a glacier slid a million years 
ago ? The truth is, that those who have never en- 
tered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of 
the poetry by which they are surrounded. Who- 
ever has not in youth collected plants and insects, 
knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and 
hedge-rows can assume. Whoever has not souglit 
for fossils, has little idea of the j)oetical associations 
that surround the places where imbedded treasures 
were found. Whoever at the seaside has not had a 
microscope and aquarium, has yet to learn what 
the highest pleasures of the seaside are. Sad, in- 
deed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with 
trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phe- 
nomena — care not to understand the architecture of 
the Heavens, but are deeply interested in some con- 
temptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary 
Queen of Scots ! — are learnedly critical over a 
Greek ode, and pass by without a glance that grand 
epic written by the finger of God UDon the strata of 
the Earth ! 

We find, then, that even for this remaining di' 



84 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

vision of human activities, scientific culture is the 
liroi3er preparation. We find that aesthetics in gen- 
eral are necessarily based upon scientific principles ; 
and can be pursued with complete success only, 
through an acquaintance with these principles. We 
find that for the criticism and due appreciation of 
works of art, a knowledge of the constitution of 
things, or in other words, a knowledge of science, is 
requisite. And we not only find that science is the 
handmaid to all forms of art and poetry, but that, 
rightly regarded, science is itself poetic. 

Thus far our question has been, the worth of 
knowledge of this or that kind for purposes of guid- 
ance. We have now to judge the relative values 
of difterent kinds of knowledge for purposes of 
discipline. This division of our subject we are 
obliged to treat with comparative brevity ; and 
happily, no very lengthened treatment of it is need- 
ed. Having found what is best for the one end, we 
have by implication found what is best for the other. 
We may be quite sure that the acquirement of those 
classes of facts which are most useful for regulating 
conduct, involves a mental exercise best fitted for 
strengthening the faculties. It would be utterly 
contrary to the beautiful economy of Nature, if one 
kind of culture were needed for the gaining of in- 
formation and another kind were needed as a men- 
tal gymnastic. Everywhere throughout creation 
we find faculties developed through the performance 
of those functions which it is their ofiice to per- 



8TUDIKS BKST ADAPTED FOK DISCIPLINK. 85 

form ; not tlirougli tlie performance of artificial ex- 
ercises devised to fit them for these functions. The 
Red Indian acquires the swiftness and agility which 
make him a successful hunter, by the actual pursuit 
of animals ; and hy the miscellaneous activities of 
his life, he gains a better balance of physical powers 
than gymnastics ever give. Tliat skill in tracking 
enemies and prey which he has reached by long 
practice, implies a subtlety of perception far exceed- 
ing anything produced by artificial training. And 
similarly throughout. From the Bushman, whose 
eye, which being habitually employed in identify- 
ing distant objects that are to be pursued or fled 
from, has acquired a quite telescopic range, to the 
accountant whose daily practice enables him to add 
up several columns of figures simultaneously, we 
find that the highest power of a faculty results from 
the discharge of those duties which the conditions 
of life require it to discharge. And we may be 
certain, d 2?rion, that the same law holds through- 
out education. The education of most value for 
guidance, must at the same time be the education 
of most value for discipline. Let us consider the 
evidence. 

One advantage claimed for that devotion to 
language-learning which forms so prominent a 
feature in the ordinary curriculum, is, that the 
memory is thereby strengthened. And it is ap- 
parently assumed that this is an advantage peculiar 
to tlie study of words. But the truth is, that the 
sciences aflord far wider fields for the exercise of 



8G WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

memory. It is no sliglit task to remember all the 
facts ascertained respecting our solar system ; much 
more to remember all that is known concerning the 
structure of our galaxy. The new compounds 
which chemistry daily accumulates, are so numer- 
ous tliat few, save professors, know the names of 
them all ; and to recollect the atomic constitutions 
and affinities of all these compounds, is scarcely 
possible without making chemistry the occupation 
of life. In the enormous mass of phenomena pre- 
sented by the Earth's crust, and in the still more 
enormous mass of phenomena presented by the 
fossils it contains, there is matter which it takes the 
geological student years of application to master. 
In each leading division of physics — sound, heat, 
light, electricity — the facts are numerous enough 
to alarm any one proposing to learn them all. 
And when we pass to the organic sciences, the effort 
of memory required becomes still greater. In Ini- 
man anatomy alone, the quantity of detail is so 
great, that the young surgeon has commonly to get 
it up half-a-dozen times before ho can permanently 
retain it. The number of species of plants which 
botanists distinguish, amounts to some 320,000 ; 
w^hile tlie varied forms of animal life with which the 
zoologist deals, are estimated at some two millions. 
So vast is the accumulation of facts which men of 
science have before them, that only by dividing 
and subdividing their labours can they deal with 
it. To a complete knowledge of his own division, 
each adds but a general knowledge of the rest. 



DISCIPLINE OF MEMORY AND JUDGMENT. 87 

Surely, tlien, science, cultivated even to a very 
moderate extent, affords adequate exercise for 
memory. To say the very least, it involves quite 
as good a training for this faculty as language does. 
But now mark that while for the training oi 
mere memory, science is as good as, if not better 
than, language ; it has an immense superiority in 
the kind of memory it cultivates. In the acquire- 
ment of a lanoruao-e, the connexions of ideas to he 
established in the mind correspond to facts that are 
in great measure accidental ; whereas, in the ac- 
quircMient of science, the connexions of ideas to be 
established in the mind correspond to facts that arc 
juostly necessary. It is true that the relations of 
^\'ords to their meaning is in one sense natural, and 
til at the genesis of these relations may be traced 
Inick a certain distance ; though very rarely to 
the beginning ; (to which let us add the remark 
that the laws of this genesis form a branch of mental 
science — the science of philology.) But since it 
will not be contended that in the acquisition of 
languages, as ordinarily carried on, these natural 
relations between words and their meanings are 
habitually traced, and the laws regulating them 
explained ; it must be admitted that they are com- 
monly learned as fortuitous relations. On the other 
hand, the relations which science presents are causal 
relations ; and, when properly taught, are under- 
stood as such. Instead of being practically acci- 
dental, they are necessary ; and as such, give exer- 
cise to the reasoning faculties. While language 



88 WHA.T KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

familiarizes with non-rational relations, science fa- 
miliarizes with rational relations. While the one 
exercises memory only, the other exercises both 
memory and nndei'standing. 

Observe next that a great snperiority of science 
over langnage as a means of discipline, is, that it 
cultivates the judgment. As, in a lecture on mental 
education delivered at the Royal Institution, Pro- 
fessor Faraday well remarks, the most common 
intellectual fault is deficiency of judgment. He 
contends that " society, speaking generally, is not 
only ignorant as respects education of the judgment, 
but it is also ignorant of its ignorance." And the 
cause to which he ascribes this state is want of 
scientific culture. The truth of his conclusion is 
obvious. Correct judgment with regard to all 
surrounding things, events, and consequences, be- 
comes possible only through knowledge of the way 
in which surrounding phenomena depend on each 
other. 1^0 extent of acquaintance with the mean- 
ings of words, can give the jDOwer of forming correct 
inferences respecting causes and effects. The con- 
stant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and 
then of verifying those conclusions by observation 
and experiment, can alone give the power of judg- 
ing correctly. And that it necessitates this habit is 
one of the immense advantages of science. 

Not only, however, for intellectual discipline is 
science the best ; but also for tnoral discipline. 
The learning of languages tends, if anything, further 
to increase the already undue respect for authority. 



SCIENCE AFFORDS MORAL DISCIPLINE. 89 

Such and sucli are the meanings of these words, 
says the teacher or the dictionary. So and so is 
the rule in this case, says the grammar. By the 
pupil these dicta are received as unquestionable. 
His constant attitude of mind is that of submission 
to dogmatic teaching. And a necessary result is a 
tendency to accept without inquiry whatever is 
established. Quite opposite is the attitude of mind 
generated by the cultivation of science. By science, 
constant appeal is made to individual reason. Its 
truths are not accepted upon authority alone ; but 
all are at liberty to test them — nay, in many cases, 
the pupil is required to think out his own conclu- 
sions. Every step in a scientific investigation is sub- 
mitted to his judgment. He is not asked to admit 
it without seeing it to be true. And the trust in 
his own powers thus produced, is further increased 
by the constancy with which Nature justifies his 
conclusions when they are correctly drawn. From 
all which there flows that independence which is a 
most valuable element in character. Nor is this 
the only moral benefit bequeathed by scientific 
culture. When carried on, as it should always be, 
as much as possible under the form of independent 
research, it exercises perseverance and sincerity. 
As says Professor Tyndall of inductive inquiry, " it 
requires patient industry, and an liumble and con- 
scientious acceptance of what Nature reveals. The 
first condition of success is an honest receptivity 
and a willingness to abandon all preconceived 
notions, however cherished, if they be found to 



90 WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

contradict the truth. Believe me, a self-renuncia- 
tion which has something noble in it, and of whicli 
the world never hears, is often enacted in the private 
experience of the true votary of science." 

Lastly we have to assert — and the assertion will, 
v/e doubt not, cause extreme surprise — that the 
discipline of science is superior to that of our ordi- 
nary education, because of ihe7'eligious c\i\iwe that 
it gives. Of course we do not here use the words 
scientific and religious in their ordinary limited 
acceptations ; but in their widest and highest ac- 
ceptations. Doubtless, to the superstitions that 
pass under the name of religion, science is antago- 
nistic ; but not to the essential religion which these 
superstitions merely hide. Doubtless, too, in much 
of the science that is current, there is a pervading 
spirit of irreligion ; but not in that true science 
which has passed beyond the superficial into the 
profound. 

" True science and true religion," says Professor Iluxloy 
at the close of a recent course of lectures, " are twin-sisters, 
and the separation of either from the otlier is sure to prove 
the death of both. Science prospers exactly in proportion as 
it is religious ; and religion flourishes in exact proportion to 
the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. The great deeds 
of philosophers have been less the fruit of their intellect than 
of the direction of that intellect by an eminently religious tone 
of mind. Truth has yielded herself rather to their patience, 
their love, their single-heartedness, and their self-denial, than 
to their logical acumen." 

So far from science being irreligious, as many 



RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE. 91 

think, (t is the neglect of science that is irreligious 
— it is the refusal to study the surrounding creation 
that is irreligious. Take a humble simile. Sup- 
pose a writer were daily sakited with praises 
couched in superlative language. Suppose the 
wisdom, the grandeur, the beauty of his works, 
were the constant topics of the eulogies addressed 
to him. Suppose those who unceasingly uttered 
these eulogies on his works were content with look- 
ing at the outsides of them ; and had never opened 
them, much less tried to understand them. What 
value should we put upon their praises ? What 
should we think of their sincerity ? Yet, compar- 
ing small things to great, such is the conduct of 
mankind in general, in reference to the Universe 
and its Cause. N^ay, it is worse, l^ot only do they 
pass by without study, these things which they daily 
proclaim to be so wonderful ; but very frequently 
tliey condemn as mere triflers those who give time 
to the observation of Nature — they actually scorn 
those who show any active interest in these marvels. 
We repeat, then, that not science, but the neglect 
of science, is irreligious. Devotion to science, is 
a tacit worship — a tacit recognition of worth in the 
things studied ; and by implication in their Cause. 
It is not a mere lip-homage, but a homage ex- 
pressed in actions — not a mere professed respect, 
l»ut a respect proved by the sacrifice of time, thought, 
and labour. 

Nor is it thus only that true science is essentially 
religious. It is religious, too, inasmuch as it gen- 



92 WHAT KNOWI-EDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

erates a profound respect for, and an implicit faitli 
in, those uniform laws wliicli underlie all tilings. 
By accumulated experiences the man of science ac- 
quires a thorough belief in the unchanging relations 
of phenomena — in the invariable connexion of cause 
and consequence — in tlie necessity of good or evil 
results. Instead of the rewards and punishments 
of traditional belief, which men vaguely hope they 
may gain, or escape, spite of their disobedience ; 
he finds that there are rewards and punishments in 
the ordained constitution of things, and that the 
evil results of disobedience are inevitable, fle sees 
that the laws to which we must submit are not 
only inexorable but beneficent. He sees that in 
virtue of these laws, the process of things is ever 
towards a greater perfection and a higher happiness. 
Hence he is led constantly to insist on these laws, 
and is indignant when men disregard them. And 
thus does he, by asserting the eternal principles 
of things and the necessity of conforming to them, 
prove himself intrinsically religious. 

To all which add the further religious aspect of 
science, that it alone can give us true conceptions 
of ourselves and our relation to tlie mysteries of 
existence. At the same time that it shows us all 
which can be known, it shows us the limits beyond 
which we can know nothing. Not by dogmatic 
assertion does it teach the impossibility of compre- 
hending the ultimate cause of things ; but it leads 
us clearly to recognise this impossibility by bring- 
ing us in every direction to boundaries we cannot 



TRANSCENDENT VALUE OF SCIENCE. 93 

cross. It realizes to us in a way which nothing 
else can, the littleness of human intelligence in the 
face of that which transcends human intelligence. 
While towards the traditions and authorities of men 
its attitude may be proud, before the impenetral)le 
veil which hides the Absolute its attitude is humble 
— a true pride and a true humility. Only the sin- 
cere man of science (and by this title we do not 
mean the mere calculator of distances, or analyser 
of compounds, or labeller of species ; but him who 
through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually 
the highest) — only the genuine man of science, wo 
say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only 
human knowledge, but human conce})tion, is the 
Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and 
Thought are manifestations. 

We conclude, then, that for discipline, as well 
as for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In 
all its effects, learning the meanings of things, 
is better than learning the meanings of words. 
Whether for intellectual, moral, or religious train- 
ing, the study of surrounding phenomena is im' 
mensely superior to the study of grammars and 
lexicons. 

Thus to the question with which we set out — ' 
What knowledge is of most worth ? — the uniform 
reply is — Science. This is the verdict on all the 
counts. For direct self-preservation, or the main- 
tenance of life and health, the all-important knowl- 
edge is — Science. For that indirect self-preservation 



94: WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

wliicli we call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge 
of greatest value is — Science. For the due dis- 
charge of parental functions, the proper guidance 
is to be found only in — Science. For that interpre- 
tation of national life, past and present, without 
Vv'hich the citizen cannot rightly regulate his con- 
duct, the indispensable key is — Science. Alike for 
the most perfect production and highest enjoy- 
ment of art in all its forms, the needful preparation 
is still — Science. And for purposes of discipline 
— intellectual, moral, religious — the most efficient 
study is, once more — Science. The question which 
at first seemed so perplexed, has become, in the 
course of our inquiry, comparatively simple. We 
have not to estimate the degrees of importance of 
different orders of human activity, and diiferent 
studies as severally fitting us for them ; since we 
find that the study of Science, in its most compre- 
hensive meaning, is the best preparation for all 
these orders of activity. "We have not to decide 
between the claims of knowledge of great though 
conventional value, and knowledge of less though 
intrinsic value ; seeing that the knowledge which 
we find to be of most value in all other respects, is 
intrinsically most valuable : its worth is not de- 
pendent upon opinion, but is as fixed as is the rela- 
tion of man to the surrounding world. Necessary 
and eternal as are its truths, all Science concerns 
all mankind for all time. Equally at present, and 
in the remotest future, must it be of incalculable 
importance for the regulation of their conduct, that 



STEANGE NEGLECT OF SCIENCE. 95 

men slioiild understand the science of life, physical, 
mental, and social ; and that they should under- 
stand all other science as a key to the science of 
life. 

And yet the knowledge which is of such tran- 
scendent value is that which, in our age of boasted 
education, receives the least attention. "While this 
which we call civilization could never have arisen 
had it not been for science ; science forms scarcely 
an appreciable element in what men consider civi- 
lized training. Though to the progress of science 
we owe it, that millions find support where once 
there w^as food only for thousands ; yet of these 
millions but a few thousands pay any respect to 
that wdiicli has made their existence possible. 
Though this increasing knowledge of the proper- 
ties and relations of things has not only enabled 
wandering tribes to grow into populous nations, 
but has given to the countless members of those 
populous nations comforts and pleasures which their 
few naked ancestors never even conceived, or could 
have believed, yet is this kind of knowledge only 
now receiving a grudging recognition in our highest 
educational institutions. To the slowly growing 
acquaintance with the uniform co-existences and 
sequences of phenomena — to the establishment of 
invariable laws, we owe our emancipation from the 
grossest superstitions. But for science we should be 
still worshipping fetishes ; or, with hecatombs of 
victims, propitiating diabolical deities. And yet 
this science, wdiich, in place of the most degrading 
6 



9G WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

conceptions of things, has given us some insiglit 
into the grandeurs of creation, is written against in 
our theologies and frowned ujjon from our pulpits. 
Paraphrasing an Eastern fable, we may say that 
in the family of knowledges, Science is the house- 
hold drudge, who, in obscurity, hides unrecognised 
perfections. To her has been committed all the 
work ; by her skill, intelligence, and devotion, have 
all the conveniences and gratifications been ob- 
tained ; and while ceaselessly occupied ministering 
to the rest, she has been kept in the background, 
that her haughty sisters miglit flaunt their frip- 
peries in the eyes of the world. The parallel holds 
yet further. For we are fast coming to the dmotie- 
onent^ when the positions will be changed ; and 
while these haughty sisters sink into merited neg- 
lect. Science, proclaimed as highest alike in worth 
and beauty, will reign supreme. 



CHAl^ER n. 

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

There cannot fail to be a relationship between 
tlie successive systems of education, and the suc- 
cessive social states with which they have co-existed. 
Having a common origin in the national mind, the 
institutions of each epoch, whatever be their special 
functions, must have a family likeness. When men 
received their creed and its interpretations from an 
infallible authority deigning no explanations, it was 
natural that the teaching of children should be 
purely dogmatic. While " believe and ask no 
questions " was the maxim of the Church, it was fitly 
the maxim of the school. Conversely, now that 
Protestantism has gained for adults a right of 
private judgment and established the practice of 
appealing to reason, there is harmony in the change 
that has made juvenile instruction a process of ex- 
position addressed to the understanding. Along 
with political despotism, stern in its commands, 
ruling by force of terror, visiting trifling crimes 
with death, and implacable in its vengeance on the 
iisloyal, there necessarily grew up an academic 
discipline similarly harsh — a discipline of multiplied 
injunctions and blows for every breach of them — a 



98 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

discipline of unlimited autocracy upheld by rods, 
and ferules, and the black-hole. On the other hand, 
the increase of political liberty, the abolition ot 
law restricting individual action, and the ameliora- 
tion of the criminal code, have been accompanied 
by a kindred progress towards non-coercive educa- 
tion : the pupil is hampered by fewer restraints, 
and other means than punishments are used to gov- 
ern him. In those ascetic days when men, acting 
on the greatest misery principle, held that the more 
gratifications they denied themselves the more vir- 
tuous they were, they, as a matter of course, con- 
sidered that the best education which most thwarted 
the wishes of their children, and cut short all spon- 
taneous activity with — " You mustn't do so." 
While on the contrary, now that happiness is com- 
ing to be regarded as a legitimate aim — now that 
hours of labour are being shortened and popular 
recreations provided, parents and teachers are be- 
ginning to see that most childish desires may 
rightly be gratified, that^childish sports should be 
encouraged, and that the tendencies of the growing 
mind are not altogether so diabolical as was sup- 
posed. The age in which all thought that trades 
must be established 'by bounties and prohibitions ; 
that manufacturers needed their materials and quali- 
ties and prices to be prescribed ; and that the value 
of money could be determined by law ; was an 
age which unavoidably cherished the notions. that 
a child's mind could be made to order ; that its 
powers were to be imparted by the schoolmaster • 



AN ORDER OF MENTAL EVOLUTION. 99 

tliat it was a receptacle into wliicli knowledge was 
to 1)0 put and there built up after its teacher's ideal. 
In this free-trade era, however, when we are learn- 
ing that there is much more self-regulation in things 
t]ian was supposed ; that labour, and commerce, 
and agriculture, and navigation can do better with- 
out management than witli it ; that political gov- 
ernments, to be efficient, must grow up from within 
and. not be imposed from without ; we are also 
beginnng to see that there is a natural process of 
mental evolution which is not to be disturbed 
without injury ; that we may not force on the un- 
folding mind, our artificial forms ; but that Psy- 
chology, also, discloses to us a law of supply and 
demand, to which, if we would not do harm, we 
must conform. Thus alike in its oracular dogma- 
tism, in its harsh discipline, in its multiplied restric- 
tions, in its professed asceticism, and in its faith in 
the devices of men, the old educational regime was 
akin to the social systems with which it was con- 
temporaneous ; and similarly, in the reverse of these 
characteristics our modern modes of culture corre- 
spond to our more liberal religious and political 
institutions. 

But there remain further parallelisms to which 
we have not yet adverted : that, namely, between 
the processes by which these respective changes 
have been wi-ought out ; and that between the 
several states of heterogeneous opinion to which 
they have led. Some centuries ago there was 
uniformity of belief— religious, political, and edu- 



100 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

cational. All men were llomanists, all were 
Monarchists, all were disciples of Aristotle, and no 
one thought of calling in question that grammar- 
school routine under which all were brought up. 
The same agency has in each case replaced this 
uniformity by a constantly increasing diversity. 
That tendency towards assertion of the individuality, 
which, after contributing to produce the great 
Protestant movement, has since gone on to produce 
an ever-increasing number of sects— that tendency 
which initiated political parties, and out of the two 
primary ones has, in these modern days, evolved a 
multiplicity to which every year adds — that ten- 
dency which led to the Baconian rebellion against 
the schools, and has since originated here and 
abroad sundry new systems of thought — is a ten- 
dency which, in education also, has caused division 
and the accunmlation of methods. As external 
consequences of the same internal change, these 
processes have necessarily been more or less simul- 
taneous. Tlie decline of authority, whether papal, 
philosophic, kingly, or tutorial, is essentially one 
phenomenon ; in each of its aspects a leaning tow- 
ards free action is seen alike in the working out of 
the change itself, and in the new forms of theory 
aiid practice to which the change has given birth. 

While many will regret this multiplication of 
schemes of juvenile culture, the catholic observer 
will discern in it a means of ensuring the final estab- 
lishment of a rational system. Whatever may be 
thought of theological dissent, it is clear that dissent 



THE TRANSITION STAGE OF INQUIRY. lOl 

in education results in facilitating inquiry by tlie 
division in labour. Were we in possession of the 
true method, divergence from it would, of course, 
be prejudicial ; but the true method having to be 
found, the efforts of numerous independent seekers 
carrying out their researches in different directions, 
constitute a better agency for finding it than any 
that could be devised. Each of them struck by 
some new thought which probably contains more 
or less of basis in facts — each of them zealous on 
behalf of his plan, fertile in expedients to test 
its correctness, and untiring in his efforts to make 
known its success — each of them merciless in his 
criticism on the rest — there cannot fail, by composi- 
tion of forces, to be a gradual approximation of all 
towards the right course. Whatever portion of the 
normal method any one of them has discovered, 
nnist, by the constant exliibitiijn of its results, force 
itself into adoption ; whatever wrong practices he 
has joined with it must, by repeated experiment and 
failure, be exploded. And by this aggregation of 
truths and elimination of errors, there must eventu- 
ally be developed a correct and complete body of 
doctrine. Of the three phases through which human 
opinion passes — the unanimity of the ignorant, the 
disagreement of the inquiring, and the unanimity of 
the wise — it is manifest that the second is the parent 
of the third. They are not sequences in time only ; 
they are sequences in causation. However impa* 
I'iently, therefore, we may witness the present con- 
tlict of educational systems, and however much wa 



102 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

may regret its accompanying evils, we must recog* 
nise it as a transition stage needful to be passed 
through, and beneficent in its ultimate effects. 

Meanwhile may we not advantageously take 
stock of our progress ? After iifty years of discus- 
sion, experiment, and comparison of results, may 
W3 not expect a few steps towards the goal to be 
already made good ? Some old methods must by 
this time have fallen out of use ; some new ones 
must have become established ; and many others 
must be in process of general abandonment or 
adoption. Probably we may see in these various 
changes, when put side by side, similar characteris- 
tics — may find in them a common tendency ; and 
so, by inference, may get a clue to the direction in 
which experience is leading us, and gather hints 
how we may achieve yet further improvements. 
Let us then, as a preliminary to a deeper considera- 
tion of the matter, glance at the leading contrasts 
between the education of the past and of the present. 

The suppression of every error is commonly 
followed by a temporary ascendency of the contrary 
one ; and it so happened, that after the ages when 
physical development alone was aimed at, there 
came an age when culture of the mind was the sole 
solicitude — when children had lesson-books put be- 
fore them at between two and three years old — when 
school-hours were protracted, and the getting of 
knowledge was thought the one thing needful. As, 
further, it usually happens, that after one of these 
reactions the next advance is achieved by co-ordi' 



CULTUEE OF THE WHOLE BEING. 103 

halting the antagonist errors, and perceiving that they 
are opposite sides of one truth ; so we are now com- 
ing to the conviction that body and mind must both 
be cared for, and the whole being unfolded. The 
forcing system has been in great measure given up, 
and precocity is discouraged. People are beginning 
to see that the first requisite to success in life, is to 
be a good animal. The best brain is found of little 
service, if there be not enough vital energy to work 
it ; and hence to obtain the one by sacrificing the 
source of the other, is now considered a folly — a 
folly which the eventual failure of juvenile prodigies 
constantly illustrates. Thus we are discovering the 
wisdom of the saying, that one secret in education 
is " to know how wisely to lose time." 

The once universal practice of learning by rote, 
is daily falling more into discredit. All modern 
authorities condemn the old mechanical way of 
teaching the alphabet. The multiplication table is 
now frequently taught experimentally. In the ac- 
quirement of languages, the grammar-school plan 
is being superseded by plans based on the spontane- 
ous process followed by the child in gaining its 
mother tongue. Describing the methods there used, 
the " Reports on the Training School at Battersea " 
say : — " The instruction in the whole preparatory 
coarse is chiefly oral, and is illustrated as much as 
possible by appeals to nature." And so throughout. 
The rote-system, like other systems of its age, made 
more of the forms and symbols than of the things 
symbolized. To repeat the words correctly was 



lOir INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

everything; to understand tlieir meaning nothing*, 
and thus the spirit was sacrificed to the letter. It 
is at length perceived, that in this case as in others, 
such a result is not accidental but necessary — that 
in proportion as there is attention to the signs, there 
must be inattention to the things signified ; or that, 
as Montaigne long ago said — Scavoir par cceur tCcsI 
pas sgavoir. 

Along with rote-teaching, is declining also the 
nearly allied teaching by rules. The particulars 
first, and then the generalization, is the new method 
— a method, as the Battersea School Keports re- 
mark, which, though " the reverse of the method 
usually followed which consists in giving the pupil 
the rule first," is yet proved by experience to be 
the right one. Kule-teaching is now condemned as 
imparting a merely empirical knowledge — as pro- 
ducing an appearance of understanding without the 
reality. To give the net product of inquiry, with- 
out the inquiry that leads to it, is found to be both 
enervating and inefiicient. General truths to be of 
due and permanent use, must be earned. " Easy 
come easy go," is a saying as applicable to knowl- 
edge as to wealth. While rules, lying isolated in 
the mind — not joined to its other contents as out- 
growths from them — are continually forgotten, the 
principles which those rules express piecemeal, be- 
come, when once reached by the understanding, 
enduring possessions. While the rule-taught youth 
is at sea when beyond his rules, the youth instructed 
in princ'ples solves a new case as readily as an old 



MISCHIEFS OF RULE -TEACHING. 105 

one. Between a mind of rules and a mind of prin- 
ciples, there exists a dilference such as that between 
a confused heap of materials, and the same materials 
organized into a complete whole, with all its parts 
bound together. Of which types this last has not 
onlj the advantage that its constituent j^arts are 
better retained, but the much greater advantage, 
that it forms an efficient agent for inquiry, for inde- 
pendent thought, for discovery — ends for which the 
first is useless. Kor let it be supposed that this is 
a simile only : it is the literal truth. Tlie union of 
facts into generalizations is the organization of 
knowledge, whether considered as an objective phe- 
nomenon, or a subjective one : and the mental grasp 
may be measm'ed by the extent to which this or- 
ganization is carried. 

From the substitution of principles for rules, and 
the necessarily co-ordinate practice of leaving ab- 
stractions untaught until the mind has been famil- 
iarized with the facts from which they are ab- 
stracted, has resulted the postponement of some once 
early studies to a late period. This is exemplified 
in the abandonment of that intensely stupid custom, 
the teaching of grammar to children. As M. Mar- 
cel says : — " It may without hesitation be affirmed 
that grammar is not the stepping-stone, but the 
finishing instrument." As Mr. Wyse argues : — 
" Grammar and Syntax are a collection of laws and 
rules. Kules are gathered from practice ; they are 
the results of induction to which we come by long 
observation and comparison of facts. It is, in fine, 



106 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

tlie science, the plnlosopliy of language. In follow- 
ing the process of nature, neither individuals nor 
nations ever arrive at the science ^'?vs'^. A language 
is spoken, and poetry written, many years before 
either a grammar or prosody is even thought of. 
Men did not wait till Aristotle had constructed his 
logic, to reason. In short, as grammar was made 
after language, so ought it to be taught after lan- 
guage : an inference which all who recognise the 
relationship between the evolution of the race and of 
the individual, will see to be unavoidable. 

Of new 2)ractices that have grown up during the 
decline of these old ones, the most important is the 
systematic culture of the powers of observation. 
After long ages of blindness men are at last seeing 
that the spontaneous activity of the observing fac- 
ulties in children has a meaning and a use. What 
was once thought mere purposeless action, or play, 
or mischief, as the case might be, is now recog- 
nised as the process of acquiring a knowledge on 
which all after-knowledge is based. Hence the 
well-conceived but ill-conducted system of object- 
lessons. The saying of Bacon, that physics is the 
mother of sciences, has come to have a meaning 
in education. Without an accurate acquaintance 
with the visible and tangible properties of things, 
our conceptions must be erroneous, our inferences 
fa,llacious, and our operations unsuccessful. " The 
education of the senses neglected, all after education 
partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an insufficiency 
which it is impossible to cure." Indeed, if we con- 



TRAINING THE POWEKS OF OBSERVATION. 10 T 

sider it, we shall iind that exhaustive observation is 
an element in all great success. It is not to artists, 
naturalists, and men of science only, that it is need- 
ful ; it is not only that the skilful physician depends 
on it for the correctness of his diagnosis, and that 
to the good engineer it is so important that some 
years in the workshop are prescribed for him ; but 
we may see that the philosopher also is fundamen- 
tally one who observes relationships of things which 
others had overlooked, and that the poet, too, is one 
who sees the fine facts in nature which all recognise 
when pointed out, but did not before remark. ]^otli- 
ing requires more to be insisted on than that vivid 
and complete impressions are all essential. No 
sound fabric of wisdom can be woven out of a rot- 
ten raw-material. 

While the old method of presenting truths in 
the abstract has been falling out of use, there has 
been a corresponding adoption of the new method 
of presenting them in the concrete. The rudimen- 
ta,ry facts of exact science are now being learnt by 
direct intuition, as textures, and tastes, and colours 
are learnt. Employing the ball-frame for first les- 
sons in arithmetic exemplifies this. It is well illus- 
trated, too, in Professor De Morgan's mode of ex- 
plaining the decimal notation. M. Marcel, rightly 
repudiating the old system of tables, teaches weights 
and measures by referring to the actual yard and 
foot, pound and ounce, gallon and quart ; and lets 
tlie discovery of their relationships be experimental. 
Tlie use of geographical models and models of the 



108 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

regular bodies, &c. as introductory to geograpliy 
and geometry respectively, are facts of the same 
class. Manifestly a common trait of these methods 
is, that they carry each child's mind through a pro- 
cess like that which the mind of humanity at large 
has gone through. The truths of number, of form, 
of relationship in position, were all originally drawn 
from objects ; and to j)resent these truths to the 
child in the concrete is to let him learn them as the 
race learnt them. By and by, perhaps, it will be 
seen that he cannot possibly learn them in any other 
way ; for that if he is made to repeat them as ab- 
stractions, the abstractions can have no meaning for 
him, until he finds that they are simply statements 
of what he intuitively discerns. 

But of all the changes taking place, the most 
significant is tlie growing desire to make the acquire- 
ment of knowledge pleasurable rather than painful 
— a desire based on the more or less distinct percep- 
tion that at each age the intellectual action which 
a child likes is a healthful one for it ; and con- 
versely. There is a spreading opinion that the rise 
of an appetite for any kind of knowledge implies 
that the unfolding mind has become fit to assimilate 
it, and needs it for the purposes of growth ; and 
that on the other hand, the disgust felt towards any 
kind of knowledge is a sign either that it is prejna- 
turely presented, or that it is presented in an indi- . 
gestible form. Hence the efibrts to make eai'ly 
education anmsing, and all education interesting. 
Hence the lectures on the value of play. Hence 



THE NATURAL METHOD PLEASURABLE. 109 

the defence of nursery rhymes, and fairy tales. 
Daily we more and more conform our plans to ju- 
venile opinion. Does the child like this or that kind 
of teaching ? does he take to it ? we constantly ask. 
" His natural desire of variety should be indulged," 
says M, Marcel ; " and the gratification of his curi- 
osity should be combined with his improvement." 
" Lessons," he again remarks, " should cease before 
the child evinces symptoms of weariness." And so 
with later education. Short breaks during school- 
hours, excursions into the country, amusing lectures, 
choral songs — in these and many like traits, the 
change may be discerned. Asceticism is disappear- 
ing out of education as out of life ; and the usual 
test of political legislation — its tendency to promote 
happiness — is beginning to be, in a great degree, 
the test of legislation for the school and the nursery. 
What now is the common characteristic of these 
several changes ? Is it not an increasing conformity 
to the methods of nature ? The relinquishment of 
early forcing against which nature ever rebels, and 
the leaving of the first years for exercise of the 
limbs and senses, show this. The superseding of 
rote-learnt lessons by lessons orally and experimen- 
tally given, like those of the field and play -ground, 
shows this. The disuse of rule-teaching, and the 
adoption of teaching by principles — that is, the 
leaving of generalizations until there are particulars 
to base them on — show this. The system of object- 
lessons shows this. The teaching of the rudiments 
of science in the concrete instead of the abstract, 



110 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

bIiows tliis. And above all, this tendency is shown 
in the variously directed efforts to present knowl- 
edge in attractive forms, and so to make the ac- 
quirement of it pleasurable. For as it is the order 
of nature in all creatures that the gratification ac- 
comj)anying the fulfilment of needful functions 
serves as a stimulus to their fulfilment — as during 
the self-education of the young child, the delight 
taken in the biting of corals, and the pulling to 
pieces of toys, becomes the prompter to actions 
which teach it the properties of matter ; it follows 
that, in choosing the succession of subjects and the 
modes of instruction which most interest the pupil, 
we are fulfilling nature's behests, and adjusting our 
proceedings to the laws of life. 

Thus, then, we are on the highway towards the 
doctrine long ago enunciated by Pestalozzi, that 
alike in its order and its methods, education must 
conform to the natural process of mental evolution 
— that there is a certain sequence in which the facul- 
ties spontaneously develop, and a certain kind of 
knowledge which each requires during its develop- 
ment ; and that it is for us to ascertain this sequence, 
and supply this knowledge. All the improvements 
above alluded to are partial applications of this 
general principle. A nebulous perception of it 
now prevails among teachers ; and it is daily more 
insisted on in educational works. " The method of 
nature is the archetype of all methods," says M. 
Marcel. " The vital principle in the pursuit is to 
enable the pupil rightly to instruct himself," writes 



ORDER OF EVOLUTION OF THE FACULTIES. Ill 

Mr. "Wyse. Tlie more science familiarizes us with 
tlie constitution of things the more do we see in 
them an inherent self-siifiicingness. A higher 
knowledge tends continually to limit our interfer- 
ence with the processes of life. As in medicine the 
old " heroic treatment " has given place to mild 
treatment, and often no treatment save a normal re- 
gimen — as we have found that it is not needful to 
mould the bodies of babes by bandaging them in 
papoose fashion or otherwise — as in gaols it is being 
discovered that no cunningly devised discipline of 
ours is so efficient in producing reformation as the 
natural discipline, the making j^risoners maintain 
themselves by productive labour ; so in education 
we are finding that success is to be achieved only 
by rendering our measures subservient to that spon- 
taneous unfolding which all minds q:o throufjli in 
their progress to maturity. 

Of course, this fundamental principle of tuition, 
that the arrangement of matter and method must 
correspond with the order of evolution and mode 
of activity of the faculties — a principle so obviously 
true, that once stated it seems almost self-evident — 
has never been wholly disregarded. Teachers have 
unavoidably made their school-courses coincide with 
it in some degree, for the simple reason that educa- 
tion is possible only on that condition. Boys were 
never taught the rule-of-three until after they had 
learnt addition. They were not set to write exer- 
cises before they had got into their copy-books. 
Conic sections have always been preceded by Eu- 
7 



112 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

did. But tlie error of the old methods consists in 
this, that they do not recognise in detail what they 
are obliged to recognise in the general. Yet the 
principle apj^lies thronghont. If from the time 
when a child is able to conceive two things as re- 
lated in position, years must elapse before it can 
form a true concept of the earth, as a sphere made 
up of land and sea, covered with mountains, forests, 
rivers, and cities, revolving on its axis, and sweep- 
ing round the sun — if it gets from the one concept 
to the other by degrees — if the intermediate concepts 
which it forms are consecutively larger and more 
complicated ; is it not manifest that there is a gen- 
eral succession through which only it can pass ; 
that each larger concept is made by the combina- 
tion of smaller ones, and presupposes them ; and 
that to present any of these compound concepts be- 
fore the child is in possession of its constituent 
ones, is only less absurd than to present the final 
concept of the series before the initial one ? In the 
mastering of every subject some course of increasing- 
ly complex ideas has to be gone through. The evo- 
lution of the corresponding faculties consists in the 
assimilation of these ; which, in any true sense, is 
impossible without they are put into the mind in 
the normal order. And when this order is not fol- 
lowed, the result is, that they are received with 
apathy or disgust ; and that unless the pupil is in- 
telligent enough to eventually fill up the gaps him- 
self, they lie in his memory as dead facts, capable 
of beino; turned to little or no use. 



GUIDANCE NOT TO BE DISPENSED WITH. 113 

" But "wlij trouble ourselves about any curri- 
culum at all ? " it may be asked. " If it be true 
tliat the mind like tlie body has a predetermined 
course of evolution, — if it unfolds spontaneously — • 
if its successive desires for this or that kind of in- 
formation arise when these are severally recpiired 
for its nutrition, — if there thus exists in itself a 
prompter to the right species of activity at the 
right time ; why interfere in any way ? Why not 
leave children wholly to the discipline of nature ? — 
why not remain quite passive and let them get 
knowledge as they best can ? — why not be consistent 
throughout ? " This is an awkward looking ques- 
tion. Plausibly implying as it does, that a system 
of complete laissez-faire is the logical outcome of 
the doctrines set forth, it seems to furnish a disproof 
of them by Tcductio ad ahsurdwm. In truth, how- 
ever, they do not, wdien rightly understood, commit 
us to any such untenable position. A glance at 
the physical analogies will clearly show this. It is 
a general law of all life that the more complex the 
organism to be produced, the longer the period 
during which it is dependent on a parent organism 
for food and protection. The contrast between the 
minute, rapidly-formed, and self-moving spore of a 
conferva, and the slowly developed seed of a tree, 
with its multiplied envelopes and large stock of 
nutriment laid by to nourish the germ during its 
first stages of growth, illustrates this law in its 
application to the vegetable world. Among animal 
organisms we may trace it in a series of con- 



114 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

trasts from the monad whose spontaneously-divided 
halves are as self-sufficing the moment after their 
separation as was the original whole ; np to man, 
whose offspring not only passes through a protracted 
gestation, and subsequently long depends on the 
breast for sustenance ; but after that must have 
its food artificially administered ; must, after it 
has learned to feed itself, continue to have bread, 
clothing, and shelter provided ; and does not acquire 
the power of complete self-support until a time 
varying from fifteen to twenty years after its birth. 
Now this law applies to the mind as to the body. 
For mental pabulum also, every higher creature, 
and especially man, is at first dependent on adult 
aid. Lacking the ability to move about, the babe 
is as powerless to get materials on which to exer- 
cise its perceptions as it is to get supplies for its 
stomach. Unable to prepare its own food, it is in 
like manner unable to reduce many kinds of knowl- 
edge to a fit form for assimilation. The language 
through which all higher truths are to be gained it 
wholly derives from those surrounding it. And 
we see in such an example as the Wild Boy of 
Aveyron, the arrest of development that results 
when no help is received from parents and nurses. 
Thus, in providing from day to day the right kind 
of facts, prepared in the right manner, and giving 
them in due abundance at appropriate intervals, 
there is as much scope for active ministration to a 
child's mind as to its body. In either case it is 
the chief function of parents to see that the condi- 



PROVISION OF MENTAL NDTRIMENT. 115 

ti07is requisite to growth are maintained. And, as 
in supplying aliment, and clothing, and shelter, 
they may fulfil this function witliout at all inter- 
fering with the spontaneous development of the 
limbs and viscera either in their order or mode ; so 
they may supply sounds for imitation, objects for 
examination, books for reading, problems for solu- 
tion, and, if they use neither direct nor indirect 
coercion, may do this without in any way disturb- 
ing the normal process of mental evolution ; or 
rather, may greatly facilitate that process. Hence 
the admission of the doctrines enunciated does not, 
as some might argue, involve the abandonment of 
all teaching ; but leaves ample room for an active 
and elaborate course of culture. 

Passing from generalities to special considera- 
tions it is to be reinarked that in practice, the Pes- 
talozzian system seems scarcely to have fulfilled the 
l)romise of its theory. We hear of children not at 
all interested in its lessons, — disgusted with them 
rather ; and, so far as we can gather, the Pestaloz- 
zian schools have not turned out any unusual pro- 
portion of distinguished men, — if even they have 
reached the average. We are not surprised at this. 
The success of every appliance depends mainly upon 
the intelligence with which it is used. It is a trite 
remark, that, having the choicest tools, an unskilful 
artisan will botch his work ; and bad teachers will 
fail even with the best methods. Indeed, the good- 
ness of the method becomes in such case a cause of 



116 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

failure ; as, to continue the simile, the perfection ol 
the tool becomes in undisciplined hands a source of 
imperfection in results. A simple, unchanging, 
almost mechanical routine of tuition may be carried 
out by the commonest intellects, with such small 
beneficial effect as it is capable of producing ; but 
a complete system, — a system as heterogeneous in 
its appliances as the mind in its faculties, — a system 
proposing a special means for each special end, de- 
mands for its right emplojanent powers such as few 
teachers possess. The mistress of a dame-school can 
hear spelling-lessons ; any hedge-schoolmaster can 
drill boys in the multiplication-table ; but to teach 
spelling rightly by using the powers of the letters 
instead of their names, or to instruct in numerical 
combinations by experimental synthesis, a modicum 
of understanding is needful : and to pursue a like 
rational course throughout the entire range of 
studies, asks an amount of judgment, of invention, 
of intellectual sympathy, of analytical faculty, 
which we shall never see applied to it while the 
tutorial oflice is held in such small esteem. The 
true education is practicable only to the true philos- 
opher. Judge, then, what prospect a philosophical 
method now has of being acted out ! Knowing so 
little as we yet do of Psychology, and ignorant as 
our teachers are of that little, what chance has a 
system which requires Psychology for its basis ? 

Further hindrance and discouragement has arisen 
from confounding the Pestalozzian principle with 
the forms in which it has been embodied. Because 



PESTALOZZl's PRACTICE DEFECTIVE. 117 

particular plans have not answered expectation, 
discredit lias been cast upon the doctrine associated 
with them ; no inquiry being made whether these 
plans truly conform to such doctrine. Judging as 
usual by the concrete rather than the abstract, men 
have blamed the theory for the bunglings of the 
practice. It is as though Papin's futile attempt to 
construct a steam-engine had been held to prove 
that steam could not be used as a motive power. 
Let it be constantly borne in mind that while right 
in his fundamental ideas Pestalozzi was not there- 
fore right in all his applications of them : and we 
believe the fact to be that he was often wrong. As 
described even by his admirers, Pestalozzi was a 
man of partial intuitions, a man who had occasional 
flashes of insight, rather than a man of systematic 
thought. His first great success at Stantz was 
achieved when he had no books or appliances of 
ordinary teaching, and when " the only object of 
his attention was to find out at each moment what 
instruction his children stood peculiarly in need of, 
and wdiat was the best manner of connecting it with 
the knowledge they already possessed." Much of 
his power was due, not to caludy reasoned-out plans 
of culture, but to his profound sympathy, which 
gave him an instinctive perception of childish needs 
and difficulties. He lacked the ability logically to 
co-ordinate and develop the truths which he thus 
from time to time laid hold of; and had in great 
measure to leave this to his assistants, Kruesi, Tob- 
ler, Buss, Niederer, and Sclimid. The result is that 



118 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION, 

in their details liis own plans, and those vicarionsly 
devised, contain numerons crudities and incon- 
sistencies. His nursery -method, described in " The 
Mother's Mannal," beginning as it does with a 
nomenclature of the different parts of the body, and 
proceeding next to specify their relative positions, 
and next their connexions, may be proved not at all 
in accordance with the initial stages of mental evo- 
lution. His process of teaching the mother tongue 
by formal exercises in the meanings of words and 
in the construction of sentences, is quite needless, 
and must entail on the pupil loss of time, labour, 
and happiness. His proposed mode of teaching 
geography is utterly unpestalozzian. And often 
where his plans are essentially sound they are either 
incomplete or vitiated by some remnant of the old 
regime. While, therefore, we would defend in its 
entire extent the general doctrine which Pestalozzi 
inaugurated, we think great evil lik(3ly to result from 
an uncritical reception of his specihc devices. That 
tendency which mankind constantly exhibit to 
canonize the forms and practices along with which 
any great truth has been bequeathed to them, — 
tlieir liability to prostrate their intellects before the 
prophet, and swear by his every word, — their prone- 
ness to mistake the clothing of the idea for the idea 
itself; renders it needful to insist strongly upon 
the distinction between the fundamental principle 
of the Pestalozzian system, and the set of expedients 
devised for its practice : and to suggest that while 
the one may be considered as established, the other 



TRUTH OF THE PESTALOZZIAN IDEA. 119 

is probably nothing but an adiimbration of the 
normal course. Indeed, on looking at the state of 
our knowledge we may be quite sure that this is 
the case. Before our educational methods can be 
made to harmonize in character and arrangement 
with the faculties in their mode and order of unfold- 
ing, it is first needful that we ascertain with some 
completeness how the faculties do unfold. At pres- 
ent our knowledge of the matter extends only to 
a few general notions. These general notions must 
be developed in detail, — must be transformed into 
a multitude of specific propositions, before we can 
be said to possess that science on which the art of 
education must be based. And then wdien we have 
definitely made out in w^hat succession, and in what 
combinations the mental powers become active, it 
remains to choose out of the many possible ways of 
exercising each of them that wdiich best conforms 
to its natural mode of action. Evidently, therefore, 
it is not to be supposed that even our most advanced 
modes of teaching are tlie right ones, or nearly tha 
right ones. 

Bearing in mind then this distinction between 
the principle and the practice of Pestalozzi, and in- 
ferring from the grounds assigned that the last must 
necessarily be very defective, the reader will rate at 
its true worth the dissatisfaction with the system 
which some have expressed ; and will see that the 
due realization of the Pestalozzian idea remains 
to be achieved. Should he argue, however, from 
what has just been said that no such realization is 



120 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

at present practicable, and that all effort ought to 
be devoted to the preliminary inquiry ; we reply, 
that though it is not possible for a scheme of culture 
to be perfected either in matter or form until a ra- 
tional Psychology has been established, it is j)ossible, 
with the aid of certain guiding principles, to make 
empirical approximations towards a perfect scheme. 
To prepare the way for further research we will 
now specify these principles. Some of them have 
already been more or less distinctly implied in the 
foregoing pages ; but it will be well here to state 
them all in logical order. 

1, That in education we should proceed from 
the simple to the complex is a truth which has 
always been to some extent acted upon ; not pro- 
fessedly, indeed, nor by any means consistently. 
The mind grows. Like all things that grow it pro- 
gresses from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; 
and a normal training system being an objective 
counterpart of this subjective process, must exhibit 
the like progression. Moreover, regarding it from 
this point of view, we may see that this formula 
has much wider applications than at first appears. 
For its rationale involves not only that we should 
proceed from the single to the combined in the 
teaching of each branch of knowledge ; but that 
we should do the like with knowledge as a whole. 
As the mind, consisting at first of but few active 
faculties ; has its later-completed faculties succes- 
sively awakened, and ultimately conies to have all 



OEDEE OF MENTAL PEOCEDUEE. 121 

its fixculties in simultaneous action ; it follows that 
our teaching should begin with but few subjects at 
once, and successively adding to these, should linally 
cany on all subjects abreast — that not only in its 
details should education proceed from the simple to 
the complex, but in its ensemljle also. 

2. To say that our lessons ought to start from 
the concrete and end in the abstract, may be con- 
sidered as in part a repetition of the foregoing. 
Nevertheless it is a maxim that needs to be stated : 
if with no other view, then with the view of shew- 
ing in certain cases what are truly the simple and 
the complex. For unfortunately there has been 
much misunderstanding on this point. General 
formulas which men have devised to express groui)s 
of details, and which have severally simplified their 
conceptions by uniting many facts into one fact, 
they have supposed must simplify the conceptions 
of the child also ; quite forgetting that a generali- 
zation is simple only in comparison with the whole 
mass of particular truths it comprehends — that it is 
more complex than any one of these truths taken 
singly — that only after many of these single truths 
have been acquired does the generalization ease the 
memory and help the reason — and that to the child 
not possessing these single truths it is necessarily a 
mystery. Thus confounding two kinds of simplifi- 
cation, teachers have constantly erred by setting 
out with " first principles " : a proceeding essen- 
tially, though not apparently, at variance with the 
primary rule ; which implies that the mind should 



122 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

be introduced to principles through the medium of 
examples, and so should be led from the particular 
to the general — from the concrete to the abstract. 

3. The education of the child must accord both 
in mode and arrangement with the education of 
mankind as considered historically ; or in other 
words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual 
must follow the same course as the genesis of knowl- 
edge in the race. To M. Comte we believe society 
owes the enunciation of this doctrine — a doctrine 
which we may accept without committing ourselves 
to his theory of the genesis of knowledge, either in 
its causes or its order. In support of this doctrine 
two reasons may be assigned, either of them suffi- 
cient to establish it. One is deducible from the 
law of hereditary transmission as considered in its 
wider consequences. For if it be true that men 
exhibit likeness to ancestry both in aspect and char- 
acter — if it be true that certain mental manifesta- 
tions, as insanity, will occur in successive members of 
the same family at the same age — if, passing from 
individual cases in which the traits of many dead 
ancestors mixing with those of a few living ones 
greatly obscure the law, w^e turn to national types, 
and remark how the contrasts between them are 
persistent from age to age — if we remember that 
these respective types came from a common stock, 
and that hence the present marked differences be- 
tween them must have arisen from the action of 
modifying circumstances upon successive genera- 
tions who severally transmitted the accumulated 



MENTAL GROWTH OF THE RACE. 123 

effects to their descendants — if we find the differ- 
ences to be now organic, so that the French child 
grows into a French man even when brought up 
among strangers — and if the general fact thus illus^ 
trated is true of the whole nature, intellect inclusive ; 
then it follows that if there be an order in which 
the human race has mastered its various kinds of 
knowledge, there w^ill arise in every child an apti- 
tude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the 
same order. So that even were the order intrinsi- 
cally indifferent, it would facilitate education to 
lead the individual mind through the steps traversed 
by the general mind. But the order is not intrin- 
sically indifferent ; and hence the fundamental rea- 
son why education should be a repetition of civili- 
sation in little. It is alike provable that the his- 
torical sequence was, in its main outlines, a neces- 
sary one ; and that the causes which determined it 
api^ly to the child as to the race. Not to specify 
these causes in detail, it will suffice here to point 
out that as the mind of humanity placed in the 
midst of phenomena and striving to comprehend 
them, has, after endless comparisons, speculations, 
experiments, and theories, reached its present 
knowdedge of each subject by a specific route ; it 
may rationally be inferred that the relationship be- 
tween mind and phenomena is such as to prevent 
this knowledge from being reached by any other 
route ; and that as each child's mind stands in this 
same relationship to phenomena, they can be acces- 
sible to it only through the same route. Hence in 



124 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

deciding upon the right method of education, an 
inquiry into the method of civilisation will help to 
guide us. 

4. One of the conclusions to which such an in- 
quiry leads is, that in each branch of instruction 
we should proceed from the empirical to the ]-ational. 
A leading fact in human progress is, that every 
science is evolved out of its corresponding art. It 
results from the necessity we are under, both indi- 
vidually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by 
way of the concrete, that there must be practice and 
an accruing experience with its empirical generali- 
zations, before there can be science. Science is 
organized knowledge ; and before knowledge can 
be organized, some of it must first be possessed. 
Every study, therefore, should have a purely exper- 
imental introduction ; and only after an ample 
fund of observations has been accumulated, should 
reasoning begin. As illustrative applications of this 
rnle, we may instance the modern course of placing 
grannnar, not before language, but after it ; or the. 
ordinary custom of prefacing perspective by practi- 
cal drawing. By and by further applications of it 
will be indicated. 

5. A second corollary from the foregoing gen- 
eral principle, and one which cannot be too strenu- 
ously insisted upon, is, that in education the process 
of self-development should be encouraged to the 
fullest extent. Children should bo led to make 
their own investigations, and to draw their own in- 
ferences. They shonVI be told as little as possible, 



PROGRESS BY SELF-INSTRUCTION. 125 

and induced to discover as mucli as possible. Hu- 
manity has progressed solely by self-instruction ; 
and that to achieve the best results_, each mind must 
progress somewhat after the same fashion, is con- 
tinually proved by the marked success of self-made 
men. Those who have been brought up under the 
ordinary school-drill, and have carried away with 
them the idea that education is practicable only in 
that style, will think it hopeless to make children 
their own teachers. If, however, they will call to 
mind that the all-important knowledge of surround- 
ing objects which a child gets in its early years is 
got without help — if they will remember that the 
child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue 
— if they will estimate the amount of that experi- 
ence of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every 
l)oy gathers for himself — if they will mark the 
unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London 
giwiin, as shewn in all the directions in which his 
faculties have been tasked — if further, they w411 
tliink how many minds have struggled up unaided, 
not only through the mysteries of our irrationally- 
planned curriculuTYi, but through hosts of other ob- 
stacles besides ; they will find it a not unreasonable 
conclusion, that if the subjects be put before him in 
right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary ca- 
pacity will surmount his successive difficulties with 
but little assistance. Who indeed can watch the 
ceaseless observation, and inquiry, and inference go- 
ing on in a child's mind, or listen to its acute remarks 
on matters within the range of its faculties, without 



120 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

perceiving that these powers Avhich it manifests, if 
brought to bear systematically upon any studies 
within the same range, would readily master them 
w^ithout help ? This need f u- perpetual telling is 
the result of our stupidity, not of the child's. We 
drag it away from the facts in which it is interestedj 
and which it is actively assimilating of itself; we 
put before it facts far too complex for it to under- 
stand, and therefore distasteful to it ; finding that 
it will not voluntarily acquire these facts, w^e 
thrust them into its mind by force of threats and 
punishment ; by thus denying the knowledge it 
craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot 
digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties, 
and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general ; 
and when, as a result partly of the stolid indolence 
w^e have brought on, and partly of still continued un- 
fitness in its studies, the child can understand noth- 
ing without explanation, and becomes a mere passive 
recipient of our instruction, we infer that education 
must necessarily be carried on thus. Having by our 
method induced helplessness, we straightway make 
the helplessness a reason for our method. Clearly 
then the experience of pedagogues cannot rationally 
be quoted against the doctrine we are defending. And 
whoever sees this will see that we may safely follow 
the method of nature throughout — may, by a skilful 
ministration, make the mind as self-developing in its 
later stages as it is in its earlier ones ; and that only 
by doing this can we produce the highest power and 
activity. 



INSTINCTIVE DEMAND OF THE PLEASUKABLE. 127 

6. As a final test by -whicli to judge any plan 
of culture, should come the question, — Does it create 
a pleasurable excitement in the pupils ? When in 
doubt whether a particular mode or arrangement is 
or is not more in harmony with the foregoing princi- 
ples than some other, we may safely abide by this 
criterion. Even when, as considered theoretically, 
the proposed course seems the best, yet if it produce 
no interest, or less interest than another course, we 
should relinquish it ; for a child's intellectual in- 
stincts are more trustworthy than our reasonings. 
In respect to the knowing faculties, we may confi- 
dently trust in the general law, that under normal 
conditions, healthful action is pleasurable, while 
action which gives pain is not healthful. Tliough 
at present very incompletely conformed to by the 
emotional nature, yet by the intellectual nature, or 
at least by those parts of it which the child exhibits, 
this law is almost wholly conformed to. The re- 
pugnances to this and that study which vex the 
ordinary teacher, are not innate, but result from 
his unwise system. Fellenberg says, " Experience 
has taught me that indolence in young persons is so 
directly opposite to their natural disposition to ac- 
tivity, that unless it is the consequence of bad edu- 
cation, it is almost invariably connected with some 
constitutional defect." And the spontaneous activ 
ity to which children are thus prone, is simply the 
pursuit of those pleasures which the healthful exer- 
cise of the faoulties gives. It is true that some of 
the higher mental powers as yet but little developed 



128 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

ill the race, and congenitally possessed in any con- 
siderable degree only by the most advanced, are 
indisposed to the amount of exertion required of 
them. But these, in virtue of their very complexity, 
will, in a normal course of culture, come last into 
exercise, and will therefore have no demands made 
upon them until the pupil has arrived at an age when 
ulterior motives can be brought into play, and an in- 
direct pleasure made to counterbalance a direct dis- 
pleasure. With all faculties lower than these, how- 
ever, the direct gratification consequent on activity is 
the normal stimulus ; and under good management 
the only needful stimulus. When we are obliged to 
fall back upon some other, we must take the fact as 
evidence that we are on the wrong track. Experience 
is daily shewing with greater clearness that there is al- 
ways a method to be found productive of interest — 
even of delight ; and it ever turns out that this is the 
method proved by all other tests to be the right one. 
With most, these guiding princij)les will weigh 
but little if left in this abstract form. Partly, there- 
fore, to exemplify their application, and partly with 
a view of making sundry specific suggestions, we 
propose now to pass from the theory of education 
to the practice of it. 

It was the opinion of Pestalozzi — an opinion 
which has ever since his day been gaining ground 
— that education of some kind should begin from 
the cradle. Whoever has watched with any dis- 
cernment, the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at sur- 



IT BEGINS IN INFANCY. 129 

rounding objects, knows very well that educa- 
tion docs begin thus early, whether wc intend 
it or not ; and that these fingerings and suckings 
of every thing it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed 
listenings to every sound, are the first steps in the 
series which erjds in the discovery of unseen planets, 
the invention of calculating engines, the production 
of great paintings, or the composition of sympho- 
nies and operas. This activity of the faculties from 
the very first being spontaneous and inevitable, the 
question is whether we shall supply in due variety 
the materials on which they may exercise them- 
selves ; and to the question so put, none but an 
afiirmative answer can be given. As before said, 
however, agreement with Pestalozzi's theory does 
not involve agreement with his practice ; and here 
occurs a case in point. Treating of instruction in 
spelling he says : — 

" The spelling-book ought, therefore, to contain all the 
sounds of the language, and these ought to be taught in every 
family from the earliest infancy. The child who learns his 
spelling-book ought to repeat them to the infant in the cradle, 
before it is able to pronounce even one of them, so that they 
may be deeply impressed upon its mind by frequent repeti- 
tion." 

Joining this with the suggestions for " a nursery^ 
method," as set down in his " Mother's Manual," in 
which he makes the names, positions, connexions, 
numbers, properties, and uses of the limbs and body 
his first lessons, it becomes clear that Pestalozzi's 



130 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

notions on early mental development were too crude 
to enable him to devise judicious plans. Let us in- 
quire into the course which Psychology dictates. 

Tlie earliest impressions which the mind can as- 
similate, are those given to it by the undecomposable 
sensations — resistance, light, sound, &c. Manifest- 
ly decomposable states of consciousness cannot exist 
before the states of consciousness out of which they 
are composed. There can be no idea of form until 
some familiarity with light in its gradations and 
qualities, or resistance in its different intensities, has 
been acquired ; for, as has been long known, we rec- 
ognize visible form by means of varieties of light, 
and tangible form by ineans of varieties of resistance. 
Similarly, no articulate sound is cognizable until 
the inarticulate sounds which go to make it up 
have been learned. And thus must it be in every 
other case. Following, therefore, the necessary law 
of progression from the simple to the complex, we 
should provide for the infant a sufficiency of objects 
presenting different degrees and kinds of resistance, 
a sufficiency of objects reflecting different amounts 
and qualities of light, and a sufficiency of sounds 
contrasted in their loudness, their pitch and their 
thnhre. How fully this a priori conclusion is con- 
firmed by infantile instincts all will see on being 
reminded of the delight which every young child 
has in biting its toys, in feeling its brother's bright 
jacket-buttons, and pulling papa's whiskers — how 
absorded it becomes in gazing at any gaudily 
painted object, to which it applies the word 



EAELY CULTURE OF THE SENSES. 131 

'■' pretty," when it can pronounce it, wholly in vir- 
tue of the bright colours — and how its face broadens 
into a laugh at the tattlings of its nurse, the snap-= 
ping of a visitor's fingers, or any sound which it has 
not before heard. Fortunately, the ordinary prac- 
tices of the nursery fulfil these early requirements 
of education to a considerable degree. Much, how- 
ever, remains to be done ; and it is of more impor- 
tance that it should be done than at first appears. 
Every faculty during the period of its greatest ac- 
tivity — the period in which it is spontaneously 
evolving itself — is capable of receiving more vivid 
impressions than at any other period. Moreover, 
as these simplest elements must eventually be mas- 
tered, a^id as the mastery of them whenever achieved 
must take time, it becomes an economy of time to 
occupy this first stage of childhood, during which 
no other intellectual action is possible, in gaining a 
complete familiarity with them in all their modifica- 
tions. Add to which, that both temper and health 
will be improved by the continual gratification re- 
sulting from a due supply of these impressions 
which every child so greedily assimilates. Space; 
could it be spared, might here be well filled by some 
suggestions towards a more systematic ministration 
to these simplest of the perceptions. But it must 
suffice to point out that any such ministration ought 
to be based upon the general truth that in the de- 
velopment of every faculty, markedly contrasted im- 
pressions are the first to be distinguished : that hence 
sounds greatly differing in loudness and pitch, colours 



133 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

very remote from each other, and siihstaiices widely 
unlike in hardness or texture, should be thelirst suj>- 
plied ; and that in each ease the progression must be 
by slow degrees to impressions more nearly allied. 

Passing on to object-lessons, which manifestly 
form a natural continuation of this primary culture 
of the senses, it is to be remarked, that the system 
commonly pursued is wholly at variance with the 
method of nature, as alike exhibited in infancy, in 
adult life, and in the course of civilization. " The 
child," says M. Marcel, " must be shewn how all 
the parts of an object are connected, &c. ; " and the 
various manuals of these object-lessons severally 
contain lists of the facts which the child is to be 
told respecting each of the things put before it. 
Now it needs but a glance at the daily life of the 
infant to see that all the knowledge of things which 
is gained before the acquirement of speech, is self- 
gained — that the qualities of hardness and weight 
associated with certain visual appearances, the pos- 
session of particular forms and colours by particular 
persons, the production of special sounds by animals 
of special aspects, are ph'enomena which it observes 
for itself. In manhood too, when there are no longer 
teachers at hand, the observations and inferences 
required for daily guidance, must be made un- 
helped ; and success in life depends upon the accu- 
racy and completeness with which they are made. 
Is it probable then, that while the process displayed 
in the evolution of humanity at large, is repeated 
alike by the infant and the man, a reverse process 



THE child's demand FOK SYMPATHY. 133 

must be followed during the period between infancy 
and manhood ? and that too, even in so simple a 
thing as learning the properties of objects? Is it 
not obvious, on the contrary, that one method must 
be pursued throughout ? And is not nature perpet- 
ually thrusting this method upon us, if we had but 
the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it ? 
What can be more manifest than the desire of chil- 
dren for intellectual sympathy ? Mark how the 
infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face 
the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See 
when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the 
table, how it turns and looks at you ; does it again, 
and again looks at you ; thus saying as clearly as 
it can — " Hear this new sound." Watch how the 
elder children come into the room exclaiming — • 
" Mamma, see what a curious tiling," " Mamma, 
look at this," " Mamma, look at that ; " and would 
continue the habit, did not the silly mamma tell 
them not to tease her. Observe how, when out with 
the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with 
the new flower it has gathered, to show her how 
pretty it is, and to get her also, to say it is pretty. 
Listen to the eager volubility with which every up 
chin describes any novelty he has been to see, if 
only he can find some one who will attend with any 
interest. Does not the induction lie on the surface ? 
Is it not clear that we must conform our course to 
these intellectual instincts — that we must just sys- 
tematize the natural process — that we must listen 
to all the child has to tell us about each object, must 



134r INTELLECTUAL EDDCATION. 

induce it to say every tiling it can think of about 
sucli object, must occasionally draw its attention to 
facts it has not yet observed, with the view of lead- 
ing it to notice them itself whenever they recur, 
and must go on by and by to indicate or supply 
new series of things for a like exhaustive examina- 
tion ? See the way in which, on this method, the 
intelligent mother conducts her lessons. Step by 
step she familiarizes her little boy with the names 
of the simpler attributes, hardness, softness, colour, 
taste, size, &c., in doing w^hicli she finds him eagerly 
help by bringing this to show her that it is red, and 
the other to make her feel that it is hard, as fast as 
she gives him words for these properties. Each 
additional property, as she draws his attention to it 
in some fresh thing which he brings her, she takes 
care to mention in connexion with those he already 
knows ; so that by the natural tendency to imitate, 
he may get into the habit of repeating them one 
after another. Gradually as there occur cases in 
which he omits to name one or more of the proper- 
ties he has become acquainted with, she introduces 
the practice of asking him whether there is not 
something more that he can tell her about the thing 
he has got. Probably he does not understand. 
After letting him puzzle awhile she tells him ; per- 
haps laughing at him a little for his failure. A few 
recurrences of this and he perceives what is to be 
done. When next she says she knows something 
more about the object than he has told her, his pride 
is roused ; he looks at it intently ; he thinks over 



TRUE METHOD OF OBJECT-LESSONS. 135 

all that lie lias heard ; and tlie problem being easy, 
presently finds it out. He is full of glee at bis suc- 
cess, and she sympathizes with him. In common 
with every child, he delights in the discovery of his 
powers. He wishes for more victories, and goes in 
quest of more things about which to tell her. As 
his faculties unfold she adds quality after quality to 
his list : progressing from hardness and softness to 
roughness and smoothness, from colour to polish, 
from simple bodies to composite ones — thus con- 
stantly complicating the problem as he gains com- 
petence, constantly taxing his attention and memory 
to a greater extent, constantly maintaining his in- 
terest by supplying him with new impressions such 
as his mind can assimilate, and constantly gratifying 
him by conquests over such small difficulties as he 
can master. In doing this she is manifestly but 
following out that spontaneous process that was 
going on during a still earlier period — simply aiding 
self-evolution ; and is aiding it in the mode sug- 
gested by the boy's instinctive behavior to her. 
Manifestly, too, the course she is pursuing is the one 
best calculated to establish a habit of exhaustive 
observation ; which is the professed aim of these 
lessons. To tell a child this and to show it the other, 
is not to teach it how to observe, but to make it a mere 
recipient of another's observations : a proceeding 
which weakens rather than strengthens its powers of 
self-instruction — which deprives it of the pleasures 
resulting from successftil activity — which presents 
this all-attractive knowledge under the aspect of for- 



136 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

mal tuition — and wliicli tlms generates that indiffer- 
ence and even disgust with whicli these object-lessons 
are not unfrequently regarded. On the other hand, 
to pursue the course above described is simply to 
guide the intellect to its appropriate food ; to join 
with the intellectual appetites their natural adjuncts 
■ — mnour propre and the desire for s jm]:)athy ; to in- 
duce by the union of all these an intensity of attention 
which insures perceptions alike vivid and complete ; 
and to habituate the mind from the beginning to that 
practice of self-help which it must ultimately follow. 
Object-lessons should not only be carried on 
after quite a different fashion from that commonly 
pursued, but should be extended to a range of things 
far wider, and continue to a period far later, than 
now. Tliey should not be limited to the contents 
of the house ; but should include those of the fields 
and the hedges-, the quarry and the sea-shore. Tliey 
should not cease with early childhood ; but should 
be so kept up during youth as insensibly to merge 
into the investigations of the naturalist and the man 
of science. Here again we have but to follow na- 
ture's leadings. Where can be seen an intenser de- 
light than that of children picking up new flowers 
and watching new insects, or hoarding pebbles and 
shells ? And who is there but perceives that by 
sympathizing with them they may be led on to any 
extent of inquiry into the qualities and structures 
of these things ? Every botanist who has had chil- 
dren with him in the woods and the lanes must have 
noticed how eagerly they joined in his pursuits, hoAv 



TRAINING THE OBSERVATION, 137 

keenly they searched out plants for him, how in- 
tently they watched whilst he examined them, how 
they overwhelmed him with questions. The consist 
ent follower of Bacon — the " servant and interpre- 
ter of nature," will see that we ought modestly to 
adopt the course of culture thus indicated. Having 
gained due familiarity with the simpler properties 
of inorganic objects, the child should by the same 
process be led on to a like exhaustive examination 
of the things it picks up in its daily walks — the less 
complex facts they present being alone noticed at 
first : in plants, the colour, number, and forms of 
the petals and shapes of the stalks and leaves : in 
insects, the numbers of the wings, legs, and anten- 
nae, and their colours. As these become fully ap- 
preciated and invariably observed, further facts may 
be successively introduced : in the one case, the 
numbers of stamens and pistils, the forms of the 
flowers, whether radial or bilateral in symmetry, 
the arrangement and character of the leaves, whether 
opposite or alternate, stalked or sessile, smooth or 
hairy, serrated, toothed, or crenate ; in the other, 
the divisions of the body, the segments of the ab- 
domen, the markings of the wings, the number of 
joints in the legs, and the forms of the smaller or- 
gans — the system pursued throughout being that of 
making it the child's ambition to say respecting 
everything it finds, all that can be said. Then when 
a fit age has been reached, the means of preserving 
these plants which have become so interesting in 
virtue of the knowledge obtained of them, may as 



1S3 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

a great favour be supplied ; and eventually, as a 
still greater favour, may also be supplied tlie appa- 
ratus needful for keeping the larvae of our common 
butterflies and motlis through their transformations 
— a practice which, as we can personally testify, 
yields the highest gratification ; is continued with 
ardour for years ; when joined with the formation 
of an entomological collection, adds immense in- 
terest to Saturday-afternoon rambles ; and forms an 
admirable introduction to the study of physiology. 
We are quite prepared to hear from many that 
all this is throwing away time and energy ; and that 
children would be much better occupied in writing 
their copies or learning their pence-tables, and so 
fitting themselves for the business of life. We re- 
gret that such crude ideas of what constitutes edu- 
cation and such a narrow conception of utility, should 
still be generally prevalent. Saying nothing on the 
need for a systematic culture of the perceptions and 
the value of the practices above inculcated as 
subserving that need, we are prepared to defend 
them even on the score of the knowledo;e gained. 
If men are to be mere cits, mere porers over led- 
gers, with no ideas beyond their trades — if it is well 
that they should be as the cockney whose conception 
of rural pleasures extends no further than sitting in 
a tea-garden smoking pipes and drinking porter ; or 
as the squire who thinks of woods as places for 
shooting in, of uncultivated plants as nothing but 
weeds, and who classifies animals into game, vermin, 
Sviid stock — then indeed it is needless for men to 



ENLARGED VIEWS OF ITS IMPORT. 139 

learn Any thing that does not directly helj) to re- 
plenisli the till and till the larder. But if there is a 
more worthy aim for us tlian to be drudges — if there 
are other uses in the things around us than their 
power to bring money — if there are higher faculties 
to be exercised than acquisitive and sensual ones — 
if the pleasures which poetry and art and science 
and philosophy can bring are of any moment — then 
is it desirable that the instinctive inclination which 
every child shows to observe natural beauties and 
investigate natural phenomena should be encour- 
aged. But this gross utilitarianism which is con- 
tent to come into the world and quit it again with- 
out knowing what kind of a world it is or what it 
contains, may be met on its own ground. It will 
by and by be found that a knowledge of the laws 
of life is more important than any other knowledge 
whatever — that the laws of life include not only all 
bodily and mental processes, but by implication all 
the transactions of the house and the street, all com- 
merce, all politics, all morals — and that thereforo 
without a due acquaintance with them neither per- 
sonal nor social conduct can be rightly regulated. 
It will eventually be seen too, that the laws of life 
are essentially the same throughout the whole or- 
ganic creation ; and further, that they cannot be 
properly understood in their complex manifestations 
until they have been studied in their simpler ones. 
And when this is seen, it will be also seen that in 
aiding the child to acquire the out-of-door informa- 
tion for which it shews so great an avidity, and in 



14:0 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

encouraging tlie acquisition of such information 
throughout youth, we are simply inducing it to store 
up the raw material for future organization — the 
facts that will one day bring home to it with due 
force those great generalizations of science by which 
actions may be rightly guided. 

The spreading recognition of drawing as an 
element of education, is one amongst many signs 
of the more rational views on mental culture now 
beginning to prevail. Once more it may be re- 
marked that teachers are at length adopting the 
course w^hich nature has for ages been pressing upon 
their notice. The spontaneous efforts made by chil- 
dren to represent the men, houses, trees, and animals 
around them — on a slate if they can get nothing 
better, or with lead-pencil on paper, if they can beg 
them — are familiar to all. To be shown through a 
picture-book is one of their highest gratifications ; 
and as usual, their strong imitative tendency pres- 
ently generates in them the ambition to make 
pictures themselves also. This attempt to depict 
the striking things they see is a further instinctive 
exercise of the perceptions — a means whereby still 
greater accuracy and completeness of observation 
is induced. And alike by seeking to interest us in 
their discoveries of the sensible properties of things, 
and by their endeavours to draw, they solicit from 
us just that kind of culture which they most need. 

Had teachers been guided by nature's hints not 
only in the making of drawing a part of education, 
but in the choice of their modes of teaching it, they 



DRAWING — EARLY USE OF COLOURS. 141 

would liave done still better than they have done. 
What is it that the child first tries to represent ? 
Things that are large, things that are attractive in 
colour, things round which its pleasurable associa- 
tions most cluster — human beings from whom it has 
received so many emotions, cows and dogs which 
interest by the many phenomena they present, 
houses that are hourly visible and strike by their 
size and contrast of parts. And which of all the 
processes of representation gives it most delight ? 
Colouring. Paper and pencil are good in default 
of something better ; but a box of paints and a 
brush — these are the treasures. Tlie di'awing of 
outlines immediately becomes secondary to colour- 
ing — is gone through mainly with a view to the 
colouring ; and if leave can be got to colour a book 
of prints, how great is the favour ! Now, ridiculous 
as such a position will seem to drawing-masters, 
who postpone colouring and who teach form by a 
dreary discipline of copying lines, we believe that 
the course of culture thus indicated is the right one. 
That priority of colour to form, which, as already 
pointed out, has a psychological basis, and in virtue 
of which psychological basis arises this strong pref- 
erence in the child, should be recognized from the 
very beginning ; and from the very beginning also 
the things imitated should be real. Tliat greater 
delight in colour which is not only conspicuous in 
children but persists in most persons throughout 
life, should be continuously employed as the natural 
stimulus to the mastery of the comparatively diffi- 



142 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

cult and unattractive form — should be tlie prosper 
tive reward for the achievement of form. And 
these instinctive attempts to represent interesting 
actualities should be all along encouraged ; in the 
conviction that as, by a widening experience, smaller 
and more practicable objects become interesting, 
they too will be attempted ; and that so a gradual 
approximation will be made towards imitations hav- 
ing some resemblance to the realities. No matter 
how grotesque the shapes produced : no matter how 
daubed and glaring the colours. Tlie question is 
not whether the child is producing good drawings : 
the question is, whether it is developing its faculties. 
It has first to gain some command over its fingers, 
some crude notions of likeness ; and this practice is 
better than any other for these ends ; seeing that it 
is the spontaneous and the interesting one. During 
these early years, be it remembered, no formal 
drawing-lessons are possible : shall we therefore re- 
press, or neglect to aid, these efforts at self-culture? 
or shall we encourage and guide them as normal 
exercises of the perceptions and the powers of manip- 
ulation ? If by the supply of cheap woodcuts to 
be coloured, and simple contour-maps to have their 
boundary lines tinted, we can not only pleasurably 
draw out the faculty of colour, but can incidentally 
produce some familiarity with the outlines of things 
and countries, and some ability to move the brush 
steadily ; and if by the supply of temptingly-painted 
objects we can keep up the instinctive practice of 
making representations, however rough, it must 



ERRONEOUS METHOD IN DRAAVING. 143 

happen that by the time drawing is commonly 
commenced there will exist a facility that wonld 
else have been absent. Time will have been gained ; 
and trouble both to teacher and pupil, saved. 

From all that has been said, it may be readily 
inferred that we wholly disapprove of the j)ractice 
of drawing from copies ; and still more so of that 
formal discipline in making straight lines and curved 
lines and compound lines, with which it is the 
fashion of some teachers to begin. We reo;ret to 
find that the Society of Arts has recently, in its 
series of manuals on " Rudimentary Art-Instruc- 
tion," given its countenance to an elementary draw- 
ing-book, which is the most vicious in principle that 
we have seen. We refer to the " Outline from Out- 
line, or from the Flat," by John Bell, sculptor. As 
expressed in the prefatory note, this publication 
proposes " to place before the student a simple, yet 
logical mode of instruction ; " and to this end sets 
out with a number of definitions thus : — 

" A simple line in drawing is a thin mark drawn from one 
point to another. 

" Lines may be divided, as to their nature in drawing, into 
two classes : — 

" 1. Straight., which are marks that go the shortest road 
between two points, as A B. 

" 2. Or Curved^ which are marks which do not go the 
shortest road between two point?, as C D." 

And so the introduction progresses to horizontal 
lines, perpendicular lines, oblique lines, angles of 
9 



144 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

the several kinds, and the varions fignres which 
lines and angles make np. The work is, in short, a 
grammar of form, with exercises. And thus the 
system of commencing with a dry analysis of ele- 
ments, wdiich, in the teaching of language, has been 
exploded, is to be re-instituted in the teaching of 
drawing. The abstract is to be preliminary to the 
concrete. Scientific conceptions are to precede em- 
pirical experiences. That this is an inversion of the 
normal order, we need scarcely repeat. It has been 
well said concerning the custom of prefacing the 
art of speaking any tongue by a drilling in the parts 
of speech and their functions, that it is about as 
reasonable as prefacing the art of walking by a 
course of lessons on the bones, muscles, and nerves 
of the legs ; and much the same thing may be said 
of the proposal to preface the art of representi)ig 
objects by a nomenclature and definitions of the 
lines which they yield on analysis. These techni- 
calities are alike repulsive and needless. They ren- 
der the study distasteful at the very outset ; and all 
with the view of teaching that, which, in the course 
of practice, will be learnt unconsciously. Just as 
the child incidentally gathers the meanings of ordi- 
nary words from the conversations going on around 
it, without the help of dictionaries ; so, from the 
remarks on objects, pictures, and its own drawings, 
will it presently acquire, not only without effort but 
even pleasurably, those same scientific terms, which, 
if presented at first, are a mystery and a weariness. 
If any dependence is to be placed upon the general 



EAELT LESSONS IN PEKSPECTIVE. 145 

principles of education that have been laid down, 
the process of learning to draw should be through- 
out (continuous with those efforts of early childhood 
described above, as so worthy of encouragement. 
By the time that the voluntary practice thus ini- 
tiated has given some steadiness of hand, and some 
tolerable ideas of proportion, there will have arisen 
a vague notion of body as presenting its three di- 
mensions in perspective. And when, after sundry 
abortive, Chinese-like attempts to render this ap- 
pearance on paper, there has grown up a pretty clear 
perception of the thing to be achieved, and a desire 
to achieve it, a first lesson in empirical perspective 
may be given by means of the apparatus occasion- 
ally used in explaining perspective as a science. 
This sounds formidable ; but the experiment is both 
comprehensive and interesting to any boy or girl 
of ordinary intelligence. A plate of glass so framed 
as to stand vertically on the table, being placed 
before the pupil, and a book, or like simple object 
laid on the other side of it, he is requested, whilst 
keeping the eye in one position, to make ink dots 
upon the glass, so that they may coincide with, or 
hide the corners of this object. He is then told to 
join these dots by lines ; on doing which he per- 
ceives that the lines he makes hide, or coincide with, 
the outlines of the object. And then on being asked 
to put a sheet of paper on the other side of the glass, 
he discovers that the lines he has thus drawn repre- 
sent the object as he saw it. They not only look 
like it, but he perceives that they must be like it, 



146 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

because lie made them agree witli its outlines ; and 
by removing tlie j^aper he can repeatedly convince 
himself that they do agree with its outlines. The 
fact is new and striking ; and serves him as an 
experimental demonstration, that lines of certain 
lengths, placed in certain directions on a plane, can 
represent lines of other lengths, and having other 
directions in space. Subsequently, by gradually 
changing the position of the object, he may be led 
to observe how some lines shorten and disappear, 
whilst others come into sight and lengthen. The 
convergence of parallel lines, and, indeed, all the 
leading facts of perspective may, from time to time, 
be similarly illustrated to him. If he has been duly 
accustomed to self-help, he will gladly, when it is 
suggested, make the attempt to draw one of these out- 
lines upon paper, by the eye only ; and it may soon 
be made an exciting aim to produce, unassisted, a 
representation, as like as he can, to one subsequently 
sketched on the glass. Thus, without the unintelli- 
gent, mechanical practice of copying other drawings, 
but by a method at once simple and attractive — 
rational, yet not abstract, a familiarity with the 
linear appearances of things, and a faculty of ren- 
dering them, may be, step by step, acquired. To 
which advantages add these : — that even thus early 
the pupil learns, almost unconsciously, the true 
theory of a picture — namely, that it is a delineation 
of objects as they appear when projected on a plane 
placed between them and the eye ; and that when 
he reaches a tit age for commencing scientific per- 



PKIMAET LESSONS IN GEOMETKT. 147 

speetive he is already thoroughly acquainted with 
the facts which form its logical basis. 

As exhibiting a rational mode of communicating 
primary conceptions in geometry, we cannot do 
better than quote the following passage from Mr, 
Wyse : — 

" A child has been in the habit of using cubes for arithme- 
tic ; let him use them also for the elements of geometry. I 
would begin with solids, the reverse of the usual plan. It 
saves all the difficulty of absurd definitions, and bad explana- 
tions on points, lines, and surfaces, which are nothing but ab- 
stractions. ... A cube presents many of the principal 
elements of geometry ; it at once exhibits points, straight 
lines, parallel lines, angles, parallelograms, «&c., &c. These 
cubes are divisible into various parts. The pupil has already 
been familiarized with such divisions in numeration, and he 
now proceeds to a comparison of their several parts, and of 
the relation of these parts to each other. . . . From thence 
he advances to globes, which furnish him with elementary 
notions of the circle, of curves generally, &c., &c, 

" Being tolerably familiar with solids, he may now sub- 
stitute planes. The transition may be made very easy. Let 
the cube, for instance, be cut into thin divisions, and placed 
on paper ; he will then see as many plane rectangles as he 
has divisions ; so with all the others. Globes may be treated 
in the same manner ; he will thus see how surfaces really are 
generated, and be enabled to abstract them with facility in 
every solid. 

" He has thus acquired the alphabet and reading of geom- 
etry. He now proceeds to write it. 

" The simplest operation, and therefore the first, is merely 
to place these planes on a piece of paper, and pass the pencil 
round them. Wlien this has been frequently done, the plana 
may be put at a little distance, and the child required to copy 
it, and so on." 



148 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

A stock of geometrical conceptions having been 
obtained, in some sncli manner as this recom- 
mended by Mr. Wyse, a further step may, in course 
of time, be taken, by introducing the practice of 
testing the correctness of all figures drawn by the 
eye ; thus alike exciting an ambition to make them 
exact, and continually illustrating the difficulty of 
fulfilling that ambition. Tliere can be little doubt 
that geometry had its origin (as, indeed, the word 
implies) in tlie methods discovered by artisans and 
others, of making accurate measurement for the 
foundations of buildings, areas of inclosures, and 
the like ; and that its truths came to be treasured 
up, merely with a view to their immediate utility. 
They should be introduced to the pupil under anal- 
ogous relationships. In the cutting out of pieces 
for his card-houses, in the drawing of ornamental 
diagrams for colouring, and in those various instruc- 
tive occupations which an inventive teacher will 
lead him into, he may be for a length of time ad- 
vantageously left, like the primitive builder, to 
tentative processes ; and will so gain an abundant 
experience of the difficulty of achieving his aims 
by the unaided senses. When, having meanwhile 
undergone a valuable discipline of the perceptions, 
lie has reached a fit age for using a 23air of compass- 
es, he will, whilst duly appreciating these as ena- 
bling him to verify his ocular guesses, be still hin- 
dered by the difficulties of the approximative method. 
In this stage he may be left for a further period : 
partly as being yet too young for anything higher; 



TRAINING THE CONSTJRUCTIVE POWERS. 149 

partly because it is desirable that lie should be made 
to feel still more strongly the want of systematic 
contrivances. If the acquisition of knowledge is to 
be made continuously interesting ; and if, in the 
early civilization of the child, as in the early civili- 
zation of the race, science becomes attractive only 
as ministering to art ; it is manifest that the proper 
preliminary to geometry is a long practice in those 
constructive processes which geometry will facilitate. 
Observe that here, too, nature points the way. Al- 
most invariably, children show a strong propensity 
to cut out things in paj)er, to make, to build — a 
projJensity which, if duly encouraged and directed, 
will not only prepare the way for scientific concep- 
tions, but will develop those powers of manipula- 
tion in which most people are so deficient. 

When the observing and inventive faculties 
have attained the requisite power, the pupil may 
be introduced to empirical geometry ; that is — 
geometry dealing with methodical solutions, but 
not with the demonstrations of them. Like all 
other transitions in education, this shoidd be made 
not formally but incidentally ; and the relationship 
to constructive art should still be maintained. To 
make a tetrahedron in cardboard, like one given to 
him, is a problem which will alike interest the 
pupil, and serve as a convenient starting-point. In 
attempting this, he finds it needful to draw four 
equilateral triangles arranged in special positions. 
Being unable in the absence of an exact method to 
do this accurately he discovers on putting the tri- 



150 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

angles into their respective positions, that he can 
not make their sides fit, and that their angles do 
not properly meet at the apex. He may now be 
shown how by describing a couple of circles, each 
of these triangles may be drawn with perfect cor- 
rectness and without guessing ; and after his failure 
he will duly value the information. Having thus 
helped him to the solution of his first problem, 
with the view of illustrating the nature of geomet- 
rical methods, he is in future to be left altogether 
to his own ingenuity in solving the questions put 
to him. To bisect a line, to erect a perpendicular, 
to describe a square, to bisect an angle, to draw a 
line parallel to a given line, to describe a hexagon, 
are problems which a little patience will enable him 
to find out. And from these he may be led on 
step by step to questions of a more complex kind ; 
all of which, under judicious management, he will 
puzzle through unhelped. Doubtless, many of 
those brought up under the old regime, will look 
upon this assertion sceptically. We speak from 
facts, however, and those neither few nor special. 
We have seen a class of boys become so interested 
in making out solntions to these problems, as to 
look forward to their geometry -lesson as a chief 
event of the week. Within the last month, we 
have been told of one girls' school, in which some 
of the young ladies voluntarily occupy themsel.ves 
with geometrical questions out of school-hours ; and 
of another, in which they not only do this, but in 
which one of them is begging for problems to find 



HOW GEOMETRY IS MADE ATTEACTIYE. 151 

out during the holidays — both which facts we state 
on the authority of the teacher. There coukl in- 
deed be no stronger proofs than are thus afforded 
of the practicability and the immense advantage of 
self-development. A branch of knowledge which 
as commonly taught is dry and even repulsive, 
may, by following the method of nature, be made 
extremely interesting and profoundly beneficial. 
We say profoundly beneficial, because the effects 
are not confined to the gaining of geometrical facts, 
but often revolutionize the whole state of mind. 
It has repeatedly occurred, that those who have 
been stupefied l)y the ordinary school-drill — by its 
abstract formulas, by its wearisome tasks, by its 
cramming — liave suddenly had their intellects 
roused, by thus ceasing to nuxke them passive 
recipients, and inducing them to become active 
discoverers. The discouragement brought about 
by bad teaching having been diminished by a little 
sympathy, and sufficient perseverance induced to 
achieve a first success, there arises a revulsion of 
feeling affecting the whole nature. They no longer 
find themselves incompetent ; they too can do 
something. And gradually as success follows suc- 
cess, the incubus of despair disappears, and they 
attack the difficulties of their other studies with 
a courage that insures concpiest. 

This empirical geometry which presents an end- 
less series of problems, and should be contiimed 
along with other studies for years, may throughout 
be advantageously accompanied by those concrete 



152 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

applications of its principles wliicli serve as its pre- 
liniinaiy. After the cube, the octahedron, and the 
various forms of pyramid and prism have been 
mastered, niaj come the more complex regular 
bodies — -the dod(>caliedron, and the icosahedron — 
to construct which out of single pieces of cardboard 
recpiires considerable ingenuity. From these, the 
transition may naturally be made to such modified 
forms of the regular bodies as are met with in crys- 
tals — the truncated cube, the cube with its diliedral 
as well as its solid angles truncated, the octahedron 
and the various prisms as similarly modified ; in 
imitating which numerous forms assumed by difi^'er- 
ent metals and salts, an acquaintance with tlie 
leading facts of mineralogy will be incidentally 
gained. After long continuance in exercises of 
this kind, rational geometry, as may be supposed, 
presents no obstacles. Constantly habituated to 
contemplate relationships of form and quantity, and 
vaguely perceiving from time to time the necessity 
of certain results as reached by certain means, the 
pupil comes to regard the demonstrations of Eu- 
clid as the missing supplements to his familiar 
problems. His well-disciplined faculties enable 
him easily to master its successive propositions, and 
to appreciate their value ; and he has the occasional 
gratification of finding some of his own methods 
proved to be true, Tims he enjoys what is to the 
unprei3ared a dreary task. It only remains to add, 
that his mind will presently arrive at a fit condition 
for that most valuable of all exercises for the re 



COUKSE OF THE NATURAX METHOD. 153 

flective faculties — the making of original demon- 
strations. Such theorems as those appended to the 
successive books of the Messrs. Chambers' Euclid, 
will soon become practicable to him ; and in prov- 
ing them the process of self-development will be 
not intellectual onlj, but moral. 

To continue much further these suggestions 
would be to write a detailed treatise on education, 
which we do not purpose. The foregoing outlines 
of plans for exercising the perceptions in early 
childhood for conducting ol)ject-lessons for teaching 
drawing and geometry, must be considered as 
roughly-sketched illustrations of the method dic- 
tated by the general principles previously specified. 
We believe that on examination they will be found 
not only to progress from the simple to the complex, 
from the concrete to the abstract, from the empirical 
to the rational ; but to satisfy the further require- 
ments that education shall be a repetition of civiHza- 
tion in little, that it shall be as much as possible a 
process of self-evolution, and that it shall be pleas- 
urable. That there should be one type of method 
capable of satisfying all these conditions, tends alike 
to verify the conditions, and to prove that type of 
method the right one. And when we add that this 
method is the logical outcome of the tendency, 
characterizing all modern systems of instruction — - 
that it is but an adoption in full of the method of 
nature which they adopt partially — tluit it displays 
this complete adoption of the method of nature, not 
only by confoi'ming to the above principles, but by 



154 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

following the suggestions which the unfolding mind 
itself gives, facilitating its spontaneous activities, 
and so aiding the developments which nature is 
busy with — when we add this, there seems abun- 
dant reason to conclude, that the mode of procedure 
above exemplified, closely approximates to the true 
one. 

A few paragraphs must be appended in further 
inculcation of the two general principles, alike the 
most important and the least attended to : we mean 
the principle that throughout youth, as in early 
childhood and in maturity, the process shall be one 
of self-instruction ; and the obverse principle, that 
the mental action induced by this process shall be 
throughout intrinsically grateful. If progression from 
simple to complex, and from concrete to abstract, be 
considered the essential requirements as dictated by 
abstract psychology, then do these requirements 
that knowledge shall be self-mastered, and j^leasur- 
ably mastered, become the tests by which we may 
judge whether the dictates of abstract psychology 
are being fulfilled. If the first embody the leading 
generalizations of the science of mental growth, the 
last are the chief canons of the art of fostering men- 
tal growth. For manifestly if the steps in our 
curriculum are so arranged that they can be suc- 
cessively ascended by the pupil liimself wuth little 
or no help, they must correspond with the stages 
of evolution i'" his faculties ; and manifestly if the 
Buccessive achievements of these steps are intrinsi- 



ADVANTAGES OF SELF-EVOLUTION, 155 

cally gratifying to liim, it follows that tliej require 
no more tlian a normal exercise of his powers. 

But the making education a process of self- 
evolution has other advantages than this of keeping 
our lessons in the right order. In the first place, it 
guarantees a vividness and permanency of impres- 
sion which the usual methods can never produce. 
Any piece of knowledge which the pupil has him- 
self acquired, any problem which he has himself 
solved, becomes by virtue of the conquest much 
more thoroughly his than it could else be. The 
preliminary activity of mind which his success im- 
plies, the concentration of thought necessary to it, 
and the excitement consequent on his triumph, con- 
spire to register all the facts in his memory in a 
way that no mere information heard from a teacher, 
or read in a school-book, can be registered. Even 
if he fails, the tension to which his faculties have 
been wound wp insures his remembrance of the 
solution when given to him, better than half a 
dozen repetitions would. Observe agaui, that this 
discipline necessitates a continuous organization of 
the knowledge he acquires. It is in the very 
nature of facts and inferences, assimilated in this 
normal manner, that they successively become the 
premisses of further conclusions, — the means of 
solving still further questions. Tlie solution of 
yesterday's problem helps the pupil in master- 
ing to-day's. Thus the knowledge is turned into 
faculty as soon as it is taken in, and forthwith aids 
in the general function of thinking — does not lie 



156 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

merely written in the pages of an internal library, 
as when rote-learnt. Mark further, the impor- 
tance of the moral culture which this constant self- 
help involves. Courage in attacking difhculties, 
patient concentration of the attention, perseverance 
through failures — these are characteristics which 
after-life specially requires ; and these are charac- 
teristics which this system of making the mind 
work for its food specially produces. That it is 
thoroughly practicable to carry out instruction after 
this fashion we can ourselves testify ; having been 
in youth thus led to successively solve the com- 
paratively complex problems of Perspective. And 
that leading teachers have been gradually tending 
in this direction is indicated alike in tlie saying of 
Fellenberg, that " the individual, independent ac- 
tivity of the pupil is of much greater importance 
than the ordinary busy officiousness of many who 
assume the office of educators ; " in the opinion 
of Horace Mann, that " unfortunately education 
amongst us at present consists too much in telling., 
not in training / " and in the remark of M. Marcel, 
that " what the learner discovers by mental exer- 
tion is better known than what is told to him." 

Similarly with the correlative requirement, tliat 
the method of culture pursued shall be one produc- 
tive of an intrinsically happy activity ,^ — an activity 
not happy in virtue of extrinsic rewards to be ob- 
tained, but in virtue of its own liealthfulness. Con- 
formity to this requirement not only guards us 
against thwarting the normal process of evolution, 



PROMOTED BY PLEASURABLE FEELING. 157 

but incidentally secures positive benefits of im- 
portance. Unless we are to return to an ascetic 
niorality, the maintenance of youthful happiness 
must be considered as in itself a worthy aim. Not 
to dwell upon this, however, we go on to remark 
that a pleasurable state of feeling is far more favour- 
able to intellectual action than one of indifterence 
or disgust. Every one knows that things read, 
heard, or seen with interest, are better remembered 
than those read, heard, or seen with apathy. In 
the one case the faculties appealed to are actively 
occupied with the subject presented ; in the other 
they are inactively occupied with it ; and the atten- 
tion is continually drawn away after more attractive 
thoughts. Hence the impressions are respectively 
strong and weak. Moreover, the intellectual list- 
lessness which a pupil's lack of interest in any study 
involves, is further complicated by his anxiety, by 
his fear of consequences, wliich distract his attention, 
and increase the difficulty he finds in bringing his 
faculties to bear upon these facts that are repugnant 
to them. Clearly, therefore, the efficiency of any 
intellectual action will, other things equal, be pro- 
portionate to the gratification with which it is per- 
formed. 

It should be considered also, that impor- 
tant moral consequences depend upon the habitual 
pleasure or pain which daily lessons produce. No 
one can compare the faces and manners of two boys 
• — the one made happy by mastering interesting 
subjects, and the other made miseraljle by disgust 



158 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

with his studies, by consequent faihire, by cold 
looks, by threats, by punishment — without seeing 
that the disposition of the one is being benefited, 
and that of the other greatly injured. AVIioever 
has marked the effect of intellectual success upon 
the mind, and the power of the mind over the 
body, will see that in the one case both temper and 
health are favourably affected ; whilst in the other 
there is danger of permanent moroseness, of per- 
manent timidity, and even of permanent constitu- 
tional depression. To all which considerations we 
must add the further one, that the relationship be- 
tween teachers and their pupils is, other things 
equal, rendered friendly and influential, or antag- 
onistic and powerless, according as the system of 
culture produces happiness or misery. Human 
beings are at the mercy of their associated ideas. 
A daily minister of pain cannot fail to be regarded 
with a secret dislike, and if he causes no emotions 
but painful ones, will inevitably be hated. Con- 
versely, he who constantly aids children to their 
ends, hourly provides them with the satisfactions 
of conquest, hourly encourages them through their 
difficulties and sympathizes in their successes, can- 
not fail to be liked ; nay, if his behaviour is con- 
sistent throughout, must be loved. And when we 
remember how efficient and benign is the control 
of a master who is felt to be a friend, when com- 
pared with the control of one who is looked upon 
with aversion, or at best indifference, w^e may infer 
that the indirect advantages of conducting educa- 



SELF-CULTURE SELF-PERPETUATING 159 

tion on the happiness principle do not fall far short 
of the direct ones. To all who question the possi- 
bility of acting out the system here advocated, we 
reply as before, that not only does theory point to 
it, but experience commends it. To the many ver- 
dicts of distinguished teachers who since Pestalozzi's 
time have testified this, may be here added that of 
Professor Pillans, who asserts that " where young 
people are taught as they ought to be, they are 
quite as happy in school as at play, seldom less 
delighted, nay, often more, with the well-directed 
exercise of their mental energies, than with that of 
their muscular powers." 

As suggesting a final reason for making educa- 
tion a process of self-instruction, and by conse- 
quence a process of pleasurable instruction, we may 
advert to the fact that, in proportion as it is made 
so, is there a probability that education will not 
cease when school-days end. As long as the ac- 
quisition of knowledge is rendered habitually re- 
pugnant, so long will there be a prevailing tendency 
to discontinue it when free from the coercion of 
parents and masters. And when the acquisition of 
knowledge has been rendered habitually gratifying, 
then will there be as prevailing a tendency to con- 
tinue, without superintendence, that same self-culture 
previously carried on under superintendence. These 
results are inevitable. While the laws of mental 
association remain true — while men dislike the 
things and places that suggest painful recollec- 
tions, and delight in those which call to mind by- 



160 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 

gone pleasures — painful lessons will make know!* 
edge repulsive, and ple?.surable lessons will make it 
attractive. The men to whom in boyhood informa- 
tion came in dreary tasks along with threats of 
punishment, and who were never led into habits of 
independent inquiry, are unlikely to be students in 
after years ; while those to whom it came in the 
natural forms, at the proper times, and who remem- 
ber its facts as not only interesting in themselves, 
but as the occasions of a long series of gratifying 
successes, are likely to continue through life that 
self-instruction commenced in youth. 



CHAPTEE III. 

MOEAL EDUCATION. 

Strangely enough, the most glaring defect in 
our programmes of education is entirely overlooked. 
While much is being done in the detailed improve- 
ment of our systems in respect both of matter and 
manner, the most pressing desideratum has not yet 
been even recognised as a desideratum. To prepare 
the young for the duties of life is tacitly admitted 
by all 'to be the end which parents and school- 
masters should have in view ; and hapi)ily the value 
of the things taught, and the goodness of the meth- 
od followed in teaching them, are now ostensibly 
judged by their fitness to this end. The propriety 
of substituting for an exclusively classical training 
a training in which the modern languages shall 
liave a share, is argued on this ground. The neces- 
sity of increasing the amount of science is urged 
for like reasons. But though some care is taken to 
lit youth of both sexes for society and citizenship, 
no care whatever is taken to fit them for the still 
more important position they will ultimately have 
to fill — the position of parents. While it is seen 
that for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, an 
elaborate preparation is needed, it appears to be 



162 MORAL EDUCATION. 

tliouglit that for the bringing np of children, no 
preparation whatever is needed. While many years 
are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge, of which 
the chief value is that it constitutes ' the education 
of a gentleman ; ' and while many years are spent 
by a girl in those decorative acquirements which 
fit her for evening parties ; not an hour is spent by 
either of them in preparation for that gravest of all 
responsibilities — the management of a family. Is 
it that this responsibility is but a remote contin- 
gency ? On the contrary, it is certain to devolve 
on nine out of ten. Is it that the discharge of 
it is easy ? Certainly not : of all functions which 
the adult has to fulfil this is the most diflicult. Is 
it that each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit 
himself, or herself, for the office of parent ? No : 
not only is the need for such self-instruction unrecog- 
nised, but the complexity of the subject renders it 
the one of all others in which self-instruction is least 
likely to succeed. No rational plea can be put for- 
ward for leaving the Art of Education out of our 
curriculum. Whether as bearing upon the happi- 
ness of parents themselves, or whether as aff'ecting 
the characters and lives of their children and re- 
mote descendants, we must admit that a knowledge 
of the right methods of juvenile culture, physical, 
intellectual, and moral, is a knowledge second to 
none in imj)ortance. This topic should occupy the 
highest and last place in the course of instruction 
passed through by each man and w^oman. As 
physical maturity is marked by the ability to pre 



NEGLECT OF THE SUBJECT. 163 

dace offspring, so mental maturity is marked by the 
ability to train those offspring. The subject lohich 
involves all other subjects^ and . therefore the subject 
in which the education of every one should culminate^ 
is the Theory and Practice of Education. 

In the absence of this preparation, the manage- 
ment of children, and more especially the moral 
management, is lamentably bad. Parents either 
never think about the matter at all, or else their 
conclusions are crude and inconsistent. In most 
cases, and especially on the part of mothers, the 
treatment adopted on every occasion is that which 
the impulse of the moment prompts : it springs not 
from any reasoned-out conviction as to what will 
most conduce to the child's welfare, but merely ex- 
presses the passing parental feelings, whether good 
or ill ; and varies from hour to hour as these feel- 
ings vary. Or if these blind dictates of passion 
are supplemented by any definite doctrines and 
methods, they are those that have been handed 
down from the past, or those suggested by the re- 
membrances of childhood, or those adopted from 
nurses and servants — methods devised not by the 
enlightenment, but by the ignorance of the time. 
Commenting on the chaotic state of opinion and 
practice relative to family government, Richter 
writes : — 

" If the secret variances of a large class of ordinary fathers 
were brought to light, and laid down as a plan of studies, and 
reading catalogued for a moral education, they would run 
somewhat after this fashion : — In the fii'st hour ' pure morality 



161 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

must be read to the child, either by mypelf or the tutor ; ' in 
the second, ' mixed morality, or that which may be applied to 
one's own advantage ; ' in the third, ' do you not see that your 
father does so and so ? ' in the fourth, ' you are little, and this 
is only fit for grown-up people ; ' in the fifth, ' the chief matter 
is that you should succeed in the world, and become some- 
thing in the state ; ' in the sixth, ' not the temporary, but 
the eternal, determines the worth of a man ; ' in the seventh, 
' therefore rather suffer injustice, and be kind ; ' in the eighth, 
' but defend yourself bravely if any one attack you ; ' in the 
ninth, ' do not make a noise, dear child ; ' in the tenth, ' a boy 
must not sit so quiet ; ' in the eleventh, ' you must obey your 
parents better ; ' in the twelfth, ' and educate yourself.' So 
by the hourly change of his principles, the father conceals 
their untenableness and onesidedness. As for his wife, she is 
neither like him, nor yet like that harlequin who came on to 
the stage with a bundle of papers under each arm, and an- 
swered to the inquiry, what he had under his right arm, 
' orders,' and to what he had under his left arm, ' counter- 
orders.' But the mother miglit be much better compared to a 
giant Briareus, who had a hundred arms, and a bundle of 
papers under each." 

This state of things is not to be readily changed. 
Generations mnst pass before any great amelioration 
of it can be expected. Like political constitutions, 
educational systems are not made, but grow ; and 
within brief periods growth is insensible. Slow, 
however, as mnst be any improvement, even that 
improvement implies the use of means ; and among 
the means is discussion. 

We are not among those who believe in Lord 
Palmerston's dogma, that " all children are born 



ITS LIMITS AND DIFFICULTIES. 105 

good." On the whole, the opposite dogma, unten- 
able as it is, seems to us less wide of the truth. 
Nor do we agree with those who think that, by 
skilful discipline, children may be made altogether 
what they should be. Contrariwise, we are satisfied 
that though imperfections of nature may be di- 
minished by wise management, they cannot be re- 
moved by it. The notion that an ideal humanity 
might be forthwith produced by a perfect system 
of education, is near akin to that shadowed forth in 
the poems of Shelley, that would mankind give up 
their old institutions, prejudices, and errors, all the 
evils in the world would at once disappear : neither 
notion being acceptable to such as have dispassion- 
ately studied human aifairs. 

Not that we are without sympathy with those 
who entertain these too sanguine hopes. Enthu- 
siasm, pushed even to fanaticism, is a useful motive- 
power — perhaps an indispensable one. It is clear 
that the ardent politician would never undergo the 
labours and make the sacrifices he does, did he not 
believe that the reform he fights for is the one thing 
needful. But for his conviction that drunkenness 
is the root of almost all social evils, the teetotaller 
would agitate far less energetically. In philan- 
thropy as in other things great advantage results 
from division of labour ; and that there may be 
division of labour, each class of philanthropists 
must be more or less subordinated to its function — • 
must have an exaggerated faith in its work. Hence, 
of those who regard education, intellectual or moral. 



166 MORAL EDUCATION. 

as the panacea, we may say that their undue ex- 
pectations are not without use ; and that perhaps it 
is part of the beneficent order of things that their 
confidence cannot be shaken. 

Even were it true, however, that by some pos- 
sible system of moral government children could 
be moulded into the desired form ; and even could 
every parent be duly indoctrinated with this sys- 
tem ; we should still be far from achieving the 
object in view. It is forgotten that the carrying 
out of any such system presupposes, on the part of 
adults, a degree of intelligence, of goodness, of self- 
control, possessed by no one. The great error made 
by those who discuss questions of juvenile disci- 
pline, is in ascribing all the faults and difiiculties 
to the children, and none to the parents. The 
current assumption respecting family government, 
as respecting national government, is, that the 
virtues are with the rulers and the vices with 
the ruled. Judging by educational theories, men 
and women are entirely transfigured in the do- 
mestic relation. The citizens we do business with, 
the people we meet in the world, we all know to be 
very imperfect creatures. In the daily scandals, in 
the quarrels of friends, in bankruptcy disclosures, 
in lawsuits, in police reports, we have constantly 
thrust before us the pervading selfishness, dishon- 
esty, brutality. Yet when we criticise nursery 
management, and canvass the misbehaviour of ju- 
veniles, we habitually take for granted that these 
culpable men and women are free from moral de- 



DEFICIENCIES OF PARENTS. 167 

linquency in the treatment of their offspring ! So 
far is this from the truth, that we do not hesitate to 
say that to parental misconduct is traceable a great 
part of the domestic disorder commonly ascribed to 
the perversity of children. We do not assert this 
of the more sympathetic and self restrained, among 
whom we hope most of our readers may be classed, 
but we assert it of the mass. What kind of moral 
discipline is to be expected from a mother who, 
time after time, angrily shakes her infant because 
it will not suckle her, which we once saw a mother 
do ? How much love of justice and generosity is 
likely to be instilled by a father who, on having his 
attention drawn by his chikrs scream to tlie fact 
that its linger is jammed between the window sash 
and the sill, forthwith begins to beat the child in- 
stead of releasing it ? Yet that there are such 
fathers is testified to us by an eye-witness. Or, to 
take a still stronger case, also vouched for by direct 
testimony — what are the educational prospects of 
the boy who, on being taken home with a dislocated 
thigh, is saluted with a castigation ? It is true that 
these are extreme instances — instances exhibiting 
in human beings that blind instinct which impels 
brutes to destroy the weakly and injured of their 
own race. But extreme though they are, they 
typify feelings and conduct daily observable in 
many families. Who has not repeatedly seen a 
child slapped by nurse or parent for a fretfulnoss 
probably resulting from bodily derangement ? Who, 
when watching a mother snatch up a fallen little 



168 MOEAL EDUCATION. ' 

one, lias not often traced, both in the rongh man- 
ner and in the sliarply-iittered exclamation — ' Yovi 
stupid little thing ! ' — an irascibility foretelling 
endless future squabbles ? Is there not in the harsh 
tones in which a father bids his children be quiet, 
evidence of a deficient fellow-feeling with them ? 
Are not the constant, and often quite needless, 
thwartings that the young experience — the injunc- 
tions to sit still, which an active child cannot obey 
without sufi'ering great nervous irritation, the com- 
mands not to look out of the window when travel- 
ling by railway, which on a child of any intelli- 
gence entails serious dej^rivation — are not these 
thwartings, we ask, signs of a terrible lack of sym- 
pathy ? The truth is, that the difficulties of moral 
education are necessarily of dual origin — necessar- 
ily result from the combined faults of parents and 
children. K hereditary transmission is a law of 
nature, as every naturalist knows it to be, and as 
our daily remarks and current proverbs admit it to 
be ; then 'on the average of cases, the defects of 
children mirror the defects of their parents ; — on the 
average of cases, we say, because, complicated as 
the results are by the transmitted traits of remoter 
ancestors, the correspondence is not special but 
only general. And if, on the average of cases, this 
inheritance of defects exists, then the evil passions 
which parents have to check in their children imply 
like evil passions in themselves : hidden, it may be, 
from the public eye ; or perhaps obscured by otjier 
feelings ; but still there. Evidently, therefore, the 



MUST DEPEND UPON GENERAL IMPKOVEMENT, 169 

general practice of any ideal system of discipline is 
hopeless : parents are not good enough. 

Moreover, even were there methods by which 
the desired end could be at once efl'ected, and even 
had fathers and mothers sufficient insight, sym- 
pathy, and self-command to employ these methods 
consistently, it might still be contended that it 
would be of no use to reform family discipline faster 
than other things are reformed. What is it that 
we aim to do ? Is it not that education of what- 
ever kind has for its proximate end to prepare a 
child for the business of life — to produce a citizen 
who, at the same time that he is well conducted, is 
also able to make his way in the world ? And does 
not making his way in the world (by which we 
mean, not the acquirement of wealth, but of the 
means requisite for properly bringing up a family) 
— does not this iniply a certain htness for the world 
as it now is ? And if by any system of culture an 
ideal human being coald be produced, is it not 
doubtful whether he w^ould be fit for the world as 
it now is ? May we not, on the contrary, suspect 
that his too keen sense of rectitude, and too elevated 
standard of conduct, would make life alike intoler- 
able and impossible ? And however admirable the 
results might be, considered individually, would it 
not be self-defeating in so far as society and poster- 
ity are concerned ? It may, we think, be argued 
with much reason, that as in a nation so in a fam- 
ily, the kind of government is, on the whole, about 
as good as the general state of human nature per- 



170 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

mits it to be. It may be said that in the one case, 
as in the other, the average character of the people 
determines the quality of the control exercised. It 
may be inferred that in both cases amelioration of 
the average character leads to an amelioration of 
system ; and further, that were it possible to ame- 
liorate the system v^^ithout the average character 
being first ameliorated, evil, rather than good, 
would follow. It may be urged that such degree 
of harshness as children now experience from their 
parents and teachers, is but a preparation for that 
greater harshness which they will meet with on 
entering the world ; and that were it possible for 
parents and teachers to behave towards them with 
perfect equity and entire sympathy, it would but 
intensify the sufferings which the selfishness of men 
must, in after life, inflict on them."^ 

* This is the plea put in by some for the rough treatment ex- 
perienced by boys at our public schools ; where, as it is said, they 
are introduced to a miniature world whose imperfections and hard- 
ships prepare them for those of the real world : and it must be 
admitted that the plea has some force. But it is a very insuflBcient 
plea. For whereas domestic and school discipline, though they 
should not be very much better than the discipline of adult life, 
should at any rate be somewhat better; the discipline which boys 
mv'-et with at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, &c., is much worse than 
that of adult life — much more unjust, cruel, brutal. Instead of being 
an aid to human progress, which all culture should be, the culture 
©f our public schools, by accustoming boys to a despotic form of 
government and an intercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit 
them for a lower state of society than that which exists. And 
chiefly recruited as our legislature is from among tho-se who are 
brought up at these schools, this barbarizing influence becomes a 
serious hindrance to national progress. 



LIMITED BY THE STATE OF SOCIETY 171 

" But does not this prove too much ? " some one 
will ask, " If no system of moral culture can forth- 
with make children altogether what they should 
be ; if, even were there a system that would do 
this, existing parents are too imperfect to carry it 
out ; and if even could such a system he success- 
fully caried out, its results would be disastrously 
incongruous with the present state of society ; does 
it not follow that a reform in the system now in 
use is neither practicable nor desirable ? " ISTo. It 
merely follows that reform in domestic government 
must go on, pari passii^ with other reforms. It 
merely follows that methods of discipline neither 
can be nor should be ameliorated, except by instal- 
ments. It merely follows that the dictates of ab- 
stract rectitude will, in practice, inevitably be sub- 
ordinated by the present state of human nature — 
by the imperfections alike of children, of parents, 
and of society ; and can only be better fulfilled as 
the general character becomes better. 

" At any rate, then," may rejoin our critic, " it 
is clearly useless to set up any ideal standard of 
family discipline. There can be no advantage in 
elaborating and recommending methods that are in 
advance of the time." Again we must contend for 
the contrary. Just as in the case of political gov- 
ernment, though pure rectitude may be at present 
impracticable, it is requisite to know where the 
right lies, so that the changes we make may be 
towards the right instead of aioay from it ; so in 
the case of domestic government, an ideal must be 



172 MORAL EDUCATION. 

upheld, that there may be gradual approximations 
to ito We need fear no evil consequences from the 
maintenance of such an ideal. On the average the 
constitutional conservatism of mankind is always 
strong enougli to prevent a too rapid change. So 
admirable are the arrangements of things that until 
men have grown up to the level of a higher belief, 
they cannot receive it : nominally, they may hold 
it, but not virtually. And even when the truth 
gets recognised, the obstacles to conformity with it 
are so ptirsistent as to outlive the patience of phi- 
lanthropists and even philosophers. We may be 
quite sure, therefore, that the many difficulties 
standing in the way of a normal government of 
children, w^ill always put an adequate check upon 
the efforts to realize it. 

With these preliminary explanations, let us go 
on to consider the true aims and methods of moral 
education — moral education, strictly so called, we 
mean ; for we do not propose to enter upon the 
question of religious education as an aid to the 
education exclusively moral. This we omit as a 
topic better dealt with separately. After a few 
pages devoted to the settlement of general prin- 
ciples, during the perusal of which we bespeak the 
reader's patience, we shall aim by illustrations to 
make clear the right methods of parental behaviour 
in the hourly occurring difficulties of family gov- 
ernment. 

When a child falls, or runs its head ag-ainst the 



THE METHOD OF NATURE. 173 

table, it suffers a pain, the remembrance of which 
tends to make it more careful for the future ; and 
by an occasional repetition of like experiences, it is 
eventuaUy disciplined into a proper guidance of its 
movements. If it lays hold of the lire-bars, thrusts 
its linger into the candle-flame, or spills boiling 
water on any part of its skin, the resulting burn 
or scald is a lesson not easily forgotten. So deep 
an impression is produced by one or two such 
events, that afterwards no persuasion will induce it 
again to disregard the laws of its constitution in 
these ways. 

Now in these and like cases, Kature illustrates 
to us in the simplest way, the true theory and 
practice of moral discipline — a theory and practice 
which, however mucli they may seem to the super- 
ficial like those commonly received, we shall find on 
examination to differ from tliem very widely. 

Observe, in the first place, that in bodily in- 
juries and their penalties we have misconduct and 
its consequences reduced to their simplest forms. 
Though, according to their popular acceptations, 
right and lorong are words scarcely applicable to 
actions that have none but direct bodily effects ; 
yet whoever considers the matter will see that such 
actions must be as much classifiable under these 
heads as any other actions. From whatever basis 
they start, all theories of morality agree in con- 
sidering that conduct whose total results, immediate 
and remote, are beneficial, is good conduct ; while 
conduct whose total results, immediate and remote 



174 MORAL EDDCATION. 

are injurious, is bad conduct. The happiness or 
misery caused by it are tlie ultimate standards by 
which all men judge of behaviour. We consider 
drunkenness wrong because of the physical degen- 
eracy and accompanying moral evils entailed on 
the transgressor and his dependents. Did theft 
uniformly give pleasure both to taker and loser, we 
should not find it in our catalogue of sins. Were 
it conceivable that benevolent actions multiplied 
human pains, we should condemn them — should 
not consider them benevolent. It needs but to 
read the first newspaper leader, or listen to any 
conversation touching social affairs, to see that acts 
of parliament, political movements, philanthropic 
agitations, in common with the doings of individ- 
uals, are judged by their anticipated results in 
multiplying the pleasures or pains of men. And if 
on looking on all secondary superinduced ideas, we 
find these to be our ultimate tests of right and 
wrong, we cannot refuse to class purely physical 
actions as right or wrong according to the beneficial 
or detrimental results they produce. 

Note, in the second place, the character of the 
punishments by which these physical transgressions 
are prevented. Punishments, we call them, in the 
absence of a better word ; for they are not punish- 
ments in the literal sense. They are not artificial 
and unnecessary inflictions of pain ; but are simply 
the beneficent checks to actions that are essentially 
at variance with bodily welfare — checks in the ab- 
sence of which life would quickly be destroyed by 



THE CHILD ACTS AND NATURE EEACTS. 175 

bodily injuries. It is the peculiarity of these pen- 
alties, if we must so call them, that they are noth- 
ing more than the unavoidable consequences of the 
deeds wliioli they follow : they are nothing more 
than the inevitahle reactions entailed by the child's 
actions. 

Let it be further borne in mind that these pain- 
ful reactions are proportionate to the degree in 
which the organic laws liavebeen transgressed. A 
slight accident brings a slight pain, a more serious 
one, a greater pain. "When a child tumbles over 
the door-step, it is not ordained that it shall suffer 
in excess of the amount necessary, with the view 
of making it still more cautious than the necessary 
suffering will make it. But from its daily expe- 
rience it is left to learn the greater or less penalties 
of greater or less errors ; and to behave accord- 
ingly. 

And then mark, lastly, that these natural reac- 
tions which follow the child's wrong actions, are 
constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be es- 
caped. No threats : but a silent, rigorous perform- 
ance. If a child runs a pin into its finger, pain 
follows. If it does it again, there is again the same 
result : and so on perpetually. In all its dealings 
with surrounding inorganic nature it finds this un- 
swerving persistence, which listens to no excuse, 
and from which there is no appeal ; and very soon 
recognising this stern though beneficent discipline, 
it becomes extremely careful not to transgress. 

Still more significant will these general truths 
11 



170 MORAL EDUCATION. 

appear, when we remember that they hold through- 
out adult life as well as throughout infantine life. 
It is by an experimentally-gained knowledge of the 
natural consequences, that men and women are 
cheeked when they go wrong. After home educa- 
tion has ceased, and when there are no longer par- 
ents and teachers to forbid this or that kind of 
conduct, there comes into play a discipline like that 
by which the young child is taught its first lessons 
in self-guidance. If the youth entering upon the 
business of life idles away his time and fulfils slowly 
or unskilfully the duties entrusted to him, there by- 
and-bye follows the natural penalty : he is dis- 
charged, and left to suffer for awhile the evils of 
relative poverty. On the unpunctual man, failing 
alike his appointments of business and pleasure, 
there continually fall the consequent inconveniences, 
losses, and deprivations. The avaricious tradesman 
who charges too high a rate of profit, loses his cus- 
tomers, and so is checked in his greediness. Di- 
minishing practice teaches the inattentive doctor to 
bestow more trouble on his patients. The too 
credulous creditor and the over-sanguine specula- 
tor alike learn by the difficulties which rashness 
entails on them, the necessity of being more cau- 
tious in their eno^ao-ements. And so throuffhout 
the life of every citizen. In the quotation so often 
made apropos of these cases — " The burnt child 
dreads the fire " — we see not only that the analogy 
between this social discipline and Nature's early 
discipline of infants is universally recognised ; but 



nature's method with adults. 177 

we also see an implied conviction that this disci- 
pline is of the most efficient kind, Naj more, this 
conviction is not only implied, but distinctly stated. 
Every one has heard others confess that only by 
-' dearly bought experience " had they been induced 
oo give up some bad or foolish course of conduct 
formerly pursued. Every one has heard, in the 
criticisms passed on the doings of this spendthrift 
or the other speculator, the remark that advice was 
useless, and that nothing but " bitter experience " 
would produce any effect : nothing, that is, but 
suifering the unavoidable consequences. And if 
furtlier proof be needed that the penalty of the 
natural reaction is not only the most efficient, but 
that no humanly-devised penalty can replace it, we 
have such further proof in the notorious ill-success 
of our various penal systems. Out of the many 
methods of criminal discipline that have been pro- 
posed and legally enforced, none have answered the 
expectations of their advocates. Not only have 
artificial punishments failed to produce reformation, 
but they have in many cases increased the criminal- 
ity. The only successful reformatories are those 
privately-established ones which have approximated 
their regime to the method of Nature — which have 
done little more than administer the natural conse- 
quences of criminal conduct : the natural conse- 
quences being, that by imprisonment or other re- 
straint, the criminal shall have his liberty of action 
diminished as much as is needful for the safety of 
society ; and that he shall be made to maintain him- 



178 MORAL EDUCATION. 

self while living under this restraint. Thus we see 
not only that the discipline by which the young child 
is so successfully taught to regulate its movements 
is also the discipline by which the great mass of 
adults are kept in order, and more or less improved ; 
but that the discipline humanly-devised for the 
worst adults, fails when it diverges from this divine- 
ly-ordained discipline, and begins to succeed when 
it approximates to it. 

Have we not here, then, the guiding principle 
of moral education ? Must we not infer that the 
system so beneficent in its effects, alike during in- 
fancy and maturity, will be equally beneficent 
throughout youth ? Can any one believe that the 
method which answers so well in the first and the 
last divisions of life will not answer in the inter- 
mediate division ? Is it not manifest that as " min- 
isters and interpreters of Nature " it is the function 
of parents to see that their children habitually ex- 
perience the true consequences of their condiict — 
the natural reactions : neither warding them off^ 
nor intensifying them, nor putting artificial conse- 
ciuences in place of them ? No unprejudiced reader 
will hesitate in his assent. 

Probably, however, not a few will contend that 
already most parents do this — that the punisiiments 
they infiict are, in the majority of cases, the true 
consequences of ill-conduct — that parental anger, 
renting itself in harsh words and deeds, is the re- 
sult of a child's transgression — and that, in the 



BAD SYSTEMS MAY BE RELATIVELY GOOD. 179 

Buffering, physical or moral, which the child is 
subject to, it experiences the natural reaction of its 
misbehaviour. Along with nnich error this asser 
tion, doubtless, contains some truth. It is unques- 
tionable that the displeasure of fathers and mothers 
is a true consequence of juvenile delinquency ; and 
that the manifestation of it is a normal check upon 
such delinquency. It is unquestionable that the 
scoldings, and threats, and blows, which a passion- 
ate parent visits on offending little ones, are effects 
actually produced in such a parent by their of- 
fences ; and so are, in some sort, to be considered 
as among the natural reactions of their vrrong ac- 
tions. And we are by no means prepared to say 
that these modes of treatment are not relatively 
right — right, that is, in relation to the uncontrol- 
lable cliildren of ill-controlled adults ; and right in 
relation to a state of society in which such ill-con- 
trolled adults make up the mass of the people. As 
already suggested, educational systems, like politi- 
cal and other institutions, are generally as good as 
the state of human nature permits. The barbarous 
children of barbarous parents are probably only to 
be restrained by the barbarous methods which such 
parents spontaneously employ ; while submission 
to these barbarous methods is perhaps the best prep- 
aration such children can have for the barbarous 
society in which they are presently to play a part. 
Conversely, the civilized members of a civilized 
society will spontaneously manifest their displeas- 
ure in less violent ways — will spontaneously use 



180 MOEAL EDUCATION. 

milder measures : measures strong enough for theii* 
better-natured children. Thus it is doubtless true 
that, in so far as the expression of parental feeling 
is concerned, the prmciple of the natural reaction 
is always more or less followed. The system of 
domestic government ever gravitates towards its 
right form. 

But now observe two important facts. In the 
first place, observe that, in states of rapid transition 
like ours, which witness a long-drawn battle be- 
tween old and new theories and old and new prac- 
tices, the educational methods in use are apt to 
be considerably out of harmony with the times. 
In deference to dogmas fit only for the ages that 
uttered them, many parents inflict punishments 
that do violence to their own feelings, and so visit 
on their children t^^inatural reactions ; while other 
parents, enthusiastic in their hopes of immediate 
perfection, rush to the opposite extreme. And then 
observe, in the second place, that the discipline on 
which we are insisting is not so much the expe- 
rience of parental approbation or disapprobation, 
which, in most cases, is only a secondary conse- 
quence of a child's conduct ; but it is the experience 
of those results which would naturally flow from 
the conduct in the absence of parental opinion or 
interference. The truly instructive and salutary 
consequences are not those inflicted by parents 
when they take upon themselves to be Nature's 
proxies ; but they are those inflicted by Nature 
herself. We will endeavour to make this diatinc- 



THE NORMAL SYSTEM ILLUSTRATED. 181 

tion clear by a few illustrations, wliich, while tliey 
sliow what we mean by natural reactions as con- 
trasted with artificial ones, will afford some directly 
practical suggestions. 

In every family where there are young children 
there almost daily occur cases of what mothers and 
servants call " making a litter," A child has had 
out its box of toys, and leaves them scattered about 
the floor. Or a handful of flowers, brought in from 
a morning walk, is presently seen dispersed over 
tables and chairs. Or a little girl, making doH's- 
clothes, disfigures the room with shreds. In most 
cases the trouble of rectifying this disorder falls 
anywhere but in the right place : if in the nursery, 
the nurse herself, with many grumblings about 
" tiresome little things," &c., undertakes the task ; 
if below stairs, the task usually devolves either on 
one of the elder children or on the housemaid ; the 
transgressor being visited with nothing more than, 
a scolding. In this very simple case, however, 
there are many parents wise enough to follow out, 
more or less consistently, the normal course — that 
of making the child itself collect the toys or shreds. 
The labour of putting things in order is the true 
consequence of having put them in disorder. Every 
trader in his office, every wife in her household, 
has daily experience of this fact. And if education 
be a preparation for the business of life, then every 
child should also, from the beginning, have daily 
experience of this fact. If the natural penalty be 
met by any refractory behaviour (which it may 



182 MORAL EDUCATION. 

perhaps be where tlie general system of moral dis- 
cipline previously pursued has been bad), then the 
proper course is to let the child feel the ulterior re- 
action consequent on its disobedience. Having re- 
fused or neglected to pick up and put away the 
things it lias scattered about, and having thereby 
entailed the trouble of doing this on some one else, 
the child should, on subsequent occasions, be denied 
the means of giving this trouble. Wlien next it 
petitions for its toy-box, the reply of its mamma 
should bc' — " The last time you had your toys you 
left them lying on the floor, and Jane had to pick 
them up. Jane is too busy to pick up every day 
the things you leave about ; and I cannot do it 
myself. So that, as you will not put away your 
toys when you have done with them, I cannot let 
you have them." Tliis is obviously a natural con- 
sequence, neither increased nor lessened ; and must 
be so recognised by a cliild. The penalty comes, 
too, at the moment when it is most keenly felt. A 
new-born desire is balked at the moment of antici- 
pated gratification ; and the strong Jmpression so 
produced can scarcely fail to have an effect on the 
future conduct : an effect which, by consistent rep- 
etition, will do whatever can be done in curing 
the fault. Add to which, that, by this method, a 
child is early taught the lesson which cannot be 
learnt too soon, that in this world of ours pleasures 
are rightly to be obtained only by labour. 

Take another case. Not long since we had fre- 
quently to listen to the reprimands visited on a 



THE NORMAL SYSTEM ILLUSTRATED. 183 

little girl who was scarcelj ever ready in time for 
tlie daily walk. Of eager disposition, and apt to 
become thoroughly absorbed in the occupation of 
the moment, Constance never thought of putting 
on her things until the rest were ready. The gov- 
erness and the other children had almost invariably 
to wait ; and from the mamma there almost in- 
variably came the same scolding. Utterly as this 
system failed it never occurred to the mamma to 
let Constance experience the natural penalty. ISTor, 
indeed, would she try it when it was suggested to 
her. In the world the penalty of being behind 
time is the loss of some advantage that would else 
have been gained : the train is gone ; or the steam- 
boat is just leaving its moorings ; or the best things 
in the market are sold ; or all the good seats in 
the concert-room are filled. And every one, in 
cases perpetually occurring, may see that it is the 
prospective deprivations entailed by being too late 
which prevent peojjle from being too late. Is not 
the inference obvious ? Should not these prospec- 
tive deprivations control the child's conduct also ? 
If Constance is not ready at the appointed time, the 
natural result is that of being left behind, and losing 
her walk. And no one can, we think, doubt that 
after having once or twice remained at home while 
the rest were enjoying themselves in the fields, and 
after having felt that this loss of a much-prized 
gratification was solely due to want of promptitude, 
some amendment would take place. At any rate, 
the measure would be more eff'ective than that pep 



184 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

petual scolding which ends only in producing cal- 
lousness. 

Again, when children, with more than nsnal 
carelessness, break or lose the things given to them, 
the natural penalty — the penalty which makes 
grown-up persons more careful — is the consequent 
inconvenience. Tlie want of the lost or damaged 
article, and the cost of supplying its place, are the 
experiences by which men and women are disci- 
plined in these matters ; and the experience of chil- 
dren should be as much as possible assimilated to 
theirs. We do not refer to that early period at 
which toys are pulled to pieces in the process of 
learning their physical properties, and at which the 
results of carelessness cannot be understood ; but to 
a later period, when the meaning and advantages 
of property are perceived. When a boy, old 
enough to possess a penknife, uses it so roughly as 
to snap the blade, or leaves it in the grass by some 
hedge-side, where he was cutting a stick, a thought- 
less parent, or some indulgent relative, will com- 
monly forthwith buy him another ; not seeing that, 
by doing this, a valuable lesson is lost. In such a 
case, a father may properly explain that penknives 
cost money, and that to get money requires labour ; 
that he cannot afford to purchase new penknives for 
one who loses or breaks them ; and that until he 
sees evidence of greater carefulness he must decline 
to make good the loss. A parallel discipline may 
be used as a means of checking extravagance. 

These few familiar instances, here chosen be- 



ADVANTAGES OF THE NORMAL SYSTEM. 1S5 

cause of the simplicity witli wliicli they illustrate 
our point, will make clear to every one the distinc- 
tion between those natural penalties which we con<= 
tend are the truly eiiicient ones, and those artificial 
penalties which parents commonly substitute for 
them. Before going on to exhibit the higher and 
subtler applications of this principle, let us note its 
many and great superiorities over the principle, or 
rather the empirical practice, which prevails in 
most families. 

In the first place, right conceptions of cause and 
efi'ect are early formed ; and by frequent and con- 
sistent experience are eventually rendered definite 
and complete. Proper conduct in life is much 
better guaranteed when the good and evil conse- 
quences of actions are rationally understood, than 
when they are merely believed on authority. A 
child who finds that disorderliness entails the sub- 
sequent trouble of putting things in order, or who 
misses a gratification from dilatoriness, or whose 
want of care is followed by the loss or breakage of 
some much-prized possession, not only experiences 
a keenly-felt consequence, but gains a knowledge 
of causation : both the one and the other being 
just like those which adult life will bring. Where- 
as a child who in such cases receives some repri- 
mand or some factitious penalty, not only expe- 
riences a consequence for which it often cares very 
little, but lacks that instruction respecting the es- 
sential natures of good and evil conduct, which it 
would else have gathered. It is a vice of the com' 



186 MORAL EDUCATION. 

mon system of artificial rewards and punishments, 
long since noticed by the clear-sighted, that by sub- 
stituting for the natural results of misbehaviour 
certain threatened tasks or castigations, it produce? 
a radically wrong standard of moral guidance. 
Having throughout infancy and boyhood always 
regarded parental or tutorial displeasure as the re- 
sult of a forbidden action, the youth has gained-an 
established association of ideas between such action 
and such displeasure, as cause and effect ; and con- 
sequently when parents and tutors have abdicated^ 
and their displeasure is not to be feared, the re^ 
straint on a forbidden action is in great measure re- 
moved : the true restraints, the natural reactions- 
having yet to be learnt by sad experience. A? 
writes one wlio has had personal knowledge of thif 
shortsighted system : — " Young men let loose from 
school, particularly those whose parents liave neg- 
lected to exert their influence, plunge into every 
description of extravagance ; they know no rule 
of action — they are ignorant of the reasons for 
moral conduct — they have no foundation to rest 
upon — and until they have been severely disciplined 
by the world are extremely dangerous members of 
society." 

Another great advantage of this natural system 
of discipline is, that it is a system of pure j ustice ; 
and will be recognised by every child as such. 
Whoso suffers nothing more than the evil which 
obviously follows naturally from his own misbe- 
haviour, is much less likely to think himself wrongly 



ADVANTAGES OF THE .NORMAL SYSTEM. 187 

tieated than if he siiifei's an evil artificially inflicted 
on him ; and this will be trne of children as of 
men. Take the case of a boy who is habitually reck- 
less of his clothes — scrambles through hedges with- 
out caution, or is utterly regardless of mud. If he 
is beaten, or sent to bed, he is apt to regard him- 
self as ill-used ; and his mind is more likely to be 
occupied by thinking over his injuries than repent- 
ing of his transgressions. But suppose he is re- 
quired to rectify as far as he can the harm he has 
done — to clean oif the mud with which he has cov- 
ered himself, or to mend the tear as well as he can. 
Will he not feel that the evil is one of his own pro- 
ducing ? Will he not while paying this penalty be 
continuously conscious of the connexion between it 
and its cause ? And will he not, spite his irrita- 
tion, recognise more or less clearly the justice of the 
arrangement ? If several lessons of this kind fail 
to produce amendment — if suits of clothes arc pre- 
maturely spoiled — if pursuing this same system of 
discipline a father declines to spend money for new 
ones until the ordinary time has elapsed — and if 
meanwhile, there occur occasions on which, having 
no decent clothes to go in, the boy is debarred from 
joining the rest of the family on holiday excursions 
and fete days, it is manifest that w^hile he will 
keenly feel the punishment, he can scarcely fail to 
trace the chain of causation, and to perceive that 
his own carelessness is the origin of it ; and seeing 
this, he will not have that same sense of injustice 



1S8 MORAL EDUCATION. 

as when there is no obvions connexion between the 
transgression and its penalty. 

Again, the tempers botli of parents and children 
are much less liable to be ruffled under this system 
than under the ordinary system. Instead of letting 
children experience the painful results which natu- 
rally follow from wrong conduct, the usual course 
pursued by parents is to inflict themselves certain 
other painful results. A double mischief arises 
from this. Making, as they do, multiplied family 
laws ; and identifying their own supremacy and dig- 
nity with the maintenance of these laws ; it hap- 
pens that every transgression comes to be regard- 
ed as an offence against themselves, and a cause 
of anger on their part. Add to which the further 
irritations which result from taking upon them- 
selves, in the shape of extra labour or cost, those 
evil consequences which should have been allowed 
to fall on the wrong-doers. Similarly with the 
children. Penalties which the necessary reaction of 
things brings round upon them — penalties which 
are inflicted by impersonal agency, produce an irri- 
tation that is comparatively slight and transient ; 
whereas, penalties which are voluntarily inflicted 
by a parent, and are afterwards remembered as 
caused by him or her, produce an irritation both 
greater and more continued. Just consider how 
disastrous would be the result if tliis empirical 
method were pursued from the beginning. Sup 
pose it were possible for parents to take upon them- 
selves the physical sufferings entailed on their chil- 



EVILS OF ARTIFICIAL PUNISHMENT. 189 

dren by ignorance and awkwardness ; and that 
while bearing these evil consequences thej visited 
on their children certain other evil consequences^ 
with the view of teaching them the iinproprietj of 
their conduct. Suppose that when a child, who 
had been forbidden to meddle with the kettle, spilt 
some boiling water on its foot, the mother vicari- 
ously assumed the scald and gave a blow in place 
of it ; and similarly in all other cases. Would not 
the daily mishaps be sources of far more anger than 
now ? Would there not be chronic ill-temper on 
both sides ? Yet an exactly parallel policy is pur- 
sued in after years. A father who punishes his boy 
for carelessly or wilfully breaking a sister's toy, and 
then himself pays for a new toy, does substantially 
this same thing — inflicts an artificial penalty on the 
transgressor, and takes the natural penalty on him- 
self : his own feelings and those of the transgressor 
being alike needlessly irritated. If he simply re- 
quired restitution to be made, he would produce far 
less heartburning. If he told the boy that a new 
toy must be bought at his, the boy's, cost, and that 
his supply of pocket-money must be withheld to 
the needful extent, there would be much less cause 
for ebullition of temper on either side ; while in the 
deprivation afterwards felt, the boy would exjDe- 
rience the equitable and salutary consequence. In 
brief, the system of discipline by natural reactions 
is less injurious to temper, alike because it is per- 
ceived on both sides to be nothing more than pure 
justice, and because it more or less substitutes the 



190 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

impersonal agency of nature for tlie personal agency 
of parents. 

Whence also follows the manifest corollary, that 
rnder this system the parental and iilial relation 
will be a more friendly, and therefore a more in- 
fluential one. Whether in parent or child, anger, 
however caused, and to whomsoever directed, is 
more or less detrimental. But anger in a parent 
towards a child, and in a child towards a parent, is 
especially detrimental ; because it weakens that 
bond of sympathy which is essential to a benefi- 
cent control. In virtue of the general law of asso- 
ciation of ideas, it inevitably results, both in young 
and old, that dislike is contracted towards things 
which in our experience are habitually connected 
with disagreeable feelings. Or where attachment 
originally existed, it is weakened, or destroyed, or 
turned into repugnance, according to the quantity 
of painful impressions received. Parental wrath^ 
with its accompanying reprimands and castigations, 
cannot fail, if often repeated, to produce filial alien.- 
sition ; while the resentment and sulkiness of chil- 
dren cannot fail to weaken the aflPection felt for 
them, and may even end in destroying it. Hence 
the numerous cases in which parents (and especially 
fathers, who are commonly deputed to express the 
anger and inflict the punishment) are regarded with 
indifference, if not with aversion ; and hence the 
ecpially numerous cases in which children are looked 
upon as inflictions. Seeing, then, as all must do, 
\liat estrangement of this kind is fatal to a salutary 



PENAL DISCIPLIITO OF NATURE. 191 

moral culture, it follows that parents cannot be too 
solicitous in avoiding occasions of direct antagon- 
ism with their children — occasions of personal re- 
sentment. And therefore they cannot too anxiously 
avail themselves of this discipline of natural conse- 
quences — this system of letting the penalty be in- 
flicted by the laws of things ; which, by saving the 
parent from the function of a penal agent, prevents 
these mutual exasperations and estrangements. 

Thus we see that this method of moral culture 
by experience of the normal reactions, which is the 
divinely-ordained method alike for infancy and for 
adult life, is equally applicable during the inter- 
mediate childhood and youth. And among the ad- 
vantages of this method we see — First. Tliat it 
gives that rational comprehension of right and 
wrong conduct which results from actual experience 
of the good and bad consequences caused by them. 
Second. That the child, suffering nothing more 
than the painful eifects brought upon it by its own 
wrong actions, must recognise more or less clearly 
the justice of the penalties. Third. That, recog- 
nising the justice of the penalties, and receiving 
those penalties through the working of things, 
rather than at the hands of an individual, its temper 
will be less disturbed ; while the parent occupying 
the comparatively passive position of taking care 
that the natural penalties are felt, will preserve a 
comparative equanimity. And Fourth. That mu- 
tual exasperation being thus in great measure pre- 
vented, a much happier, and a more influential 
12 



192 MORAL EDUCATION. 

state of feeling, will exist between parent and 
child. 

" But what is to be done with more serious mis- 
conduct ? " some will ask. " How is this plan to be 
carried out when a petty theft has been committed ? 
or when a lie has been told ? or when some younger 
brother or sister has been ill-used ? " 

Before replying to these questions, let us con- 
sider the bearings of a few illustrative facts. 

Living in the family of his brother-in-law, a 
friend of ours had undertaken the education of his 
little nephew and niece. This he had conducted, 
more perhaps from natural sympathy than from 
reasoned-out conclusions, in the spirit of the method 
above set forth. The two children were in doors 
his pupils and out of doors his companions. Tliey 
daily joined him in walks and botanizing excur- 
sions, eagerly sought out plants for him, looked on 
while he examined and identified them, and in this 
and other ways were ever gaining both pleasure and 
instruction in his society. In short, morally con- 
sidered, he stood to them much more in the position 
of parent than either their father or mother did. 
Describing to us the results of this policy, he gave, 
among other instances, the following. One even- 
ing, having need for some article lying in another 
part of the house, he asked his nephew to fetch it 
for him. Deeply interested as the boy was in some 
amusement of the moment, he, contrary to his 
wont, either exhibited great reluctance or refused, 



FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 193 

we forget wliich. His uncle, disapproving of a 
coercive course fetched it himself ; merely exhibit- 
ing by his manner the annoyance this ill-behaviour 
gave him. And when, later in the evening, the 
boy made overtures for the usual play, they were 
gravely repelled — the uncle manifested just that 
coldness of feeling naturally produced in him, and 
so let the boy experience the necessary consequences 
of his conduct. Next morning at the usual time 
for rising, our friend heard a new voice outside the 
door, and in walked his little nephew with the hot 
water ; and then the boy, peering about the room 
to see what else could be done, exclaimed, " Oh ! 
you want your boots," and forthwith rushed down 
stairs to fetch them. In this and other ways he 
showed a true penitence for his misconduct ; he en- 
deavoured by unusual services to make up for the 
service he had refused ; his higher feelings had of 
themselves conquered his lower ones, and acquired 
strength by the conquest ; and he valued more than 
before the friendship he thus regained. 

This gentleman is now himself a father ; acts on 
the same system ; and finds it answer completely. 
He makes himself thoroughly his children's friend. 
The evening is longed for by them because he will 
be at home ; and they especially enjoy the Sunday 
because he is with them all day. Thus possessing 
their perfect confidence and affection, he finds that 
the simple display of his approbation or disapproba- 
tion gives him abundant power of control. If, on 
his return home, he hears that one of his boys has 



194 MORAL EDUCATION. 

been naughty, lie behaves towards him with that 
comparative coldness which the consciousness of the 
boy's misconduct naturally produces ; and he finds 
this a most efficient punishment. The mere with- 
holding of the usual caresses, is a source of the 
keenest distress — produces a much more prolonged 
fit of crying than a beating would do. And the 
dread of this purely moral penalty is, he says, ever 
present during his absence : so much so, that fre- 
quently during the day his children inquire of their 
mamma how they have behaved, and whether the 
report will be good. Recently, the eldest, an ac- 
tive urchin of five, in one of those bursts of animal 
spirits common in healthy children, committed sun- 
dry extravagances during his mamma s absence — 
cut off part of his brother's hair and wounded him- 
self with a razor taken from his father's dressing- 
case. Hearing of these occurrences on his return, 
the father did not speak to the boy either that 
night or next morning. Not only was the tribula- 
tion great, but the subsequent effect was, that when, 
a few days after, the mamma was about to go out, 
she w^as earnestly entreated by the boy not to do 
so ; and on inquiry, it appeared his fear was that 
he might again transgress in her absence. 

We have introduced these facts before replying 
to the question — " What is to be done with the 
graver offences ? " for the purpose of first exhibiting 
the relation that may and ought to be established 
between parents and children ; for on the existence 
of this relation depends the successful treatment of 



CHILDREN REGARD PARENTS AS FRIEND-ENEMIES. 1G5 

these graver offences. And as a further prelimi* 
nary, we must now point out that the establishment 
of this relation will result from adopting the sys- 
tem we advocate. Already we have shown that 
by letting a child experience , simply the painful 
reactions of its own wrong actions, a parent in great 
measure avoids assuming the attitude of an enemy, 
and escapes being regarded as one ; but it still re- 
mains to be shown that where this course has been 
consistently pursued from the beginning, a strong 
feeling of active friendship will be generated. 

At present, mothers and fathers are mostly con- 
sidered by their offspring as friend -enemies. De- 
termined as their impressions inevitably are by the 
treatment they receive ; and oscillating as that 
treatment does between bribery and thwarting, be- 
tween petting and scolding, between gentleness and 
castigation ; children necessarily acquire conflicting 
beliefs respecting the parental character. A mother 
commonly thinks it quite sufficient to tell her little 
boy that she is his best friend ; and assuming that 
he is in duty bound to believe her, concludes that 
he will forthwith do so. '' It is all for your good ; " 
" I know what is proper for you better than you do 
yourself ; " " You are not old enough to understand 
it now, but when you grow up you will thank 
me for doing what I do ; " — these, and like asser- 
tions, are daily reiterated. Meanwhile the boy is 
daily suffering positive penalties ; and is hourly 
forbidden to do this, that, and the other, which he 
was anxious to do. By words he hears that his 



196 MOEAL EDUCATION. 

happiness is tlie end in view ; but from tlie accom' 
panying deeds lie habitually receives more or lesa 
pain. Utterly incompetent as he is to understand 
that future which his mother has in view, or how 
this treatment conduces to the happiness of that fu- 
ture, he judges by such results as he feels ; and 
finding these results any thing but pleasurable, he 
becomes sceptical respecting these professions of 
friendship. And is it not folly to expect any other 
issue ? Must not the child judge by such evidence 
as he has got ? and does not this evidence seem to 
warrant his conclusion? The mother would reason 
in just the same way if similarly placed. If, in the 
circle of her acquaintance, she found some one who 
was constantly thwarting her wishes, uttering sharp 
reprimands, and occasionally inflicting actual pen- 
alties on her, she would pay but little attention to 
any professions of anxiety for her welfare which 
accompanied these acts. Why, then, does she sup- 
pose that her boy will conclude otherwise ? 

But now observe how diflerent will be the re- 
sults if the system we contend for be consistently 
pursued — if the mother not only avoids becoming 
the instrument of punishment, but plays the part 
of a friend, by warning her boy of the punishments 
which Nature will inflict. Take a case ; and that 
it may illustrate the mode in which this policy is 
to be early initiated, let it be one of the simplest 
cases. Suppose that, prompted by the experi- 
mental spirit so conspicuous in children, whose 
proceedings instinctively conform to the inductive 



COURSE OF THE DISCRIMINATING MOTHER. 197 

method of inquiry — suppose that so prompted the 
child is amusing himself by lighting pieces of pa- 
per in the candle and watching them burn. If his 
mother is of the ordinary unreflective stamp, she 
will either, on the plea of keeping the child " out 
of mischief," or from fear that he will burn himself, 
command him to desist ; and in case of non-com- 
pliance will snatch the paper from him. On the 
other hand, should he be so fortunate as to have a 
mother of sufficient rationality, who knows that 
this interest with which the child is watching the 
paper burn results from a healthy inquisitiveness, 
without which he would never have emerged out 
of infantine stupidity, and who is also wise enough 
to consider the moral results of interference, she 
will reason thus : — " If I put a stop to this I shall 
prevent the acquirement of a certain amount of 
knowledge. It is true that I may save the child 
fi-om a burn; but what then? He is sure to burn 
himself sometime ; and it is quite essential to his 
safety in life that he should learn by experience the 
properties of flame. Moreover, if 1 forbid him 
from running this present risk, he is sure hereafter 
to run the same or a greater risk when no one is 
present to prevent him ; whereas, if he should have 
any accident now that I am by, I can save him 
from any great injury; add to which the advan- 
tage that he will have in future some dread of fire, 
and will be less likely to burn himself to death, or 
set the house in a flame when others are absent. 
Furthermore, were I to make him desist, I should 



198 MORAL EDUCATION. 

thwart liim in the pursuit of what is in itself a 
purely harmless, and indeed, instructive gratifica- 
tion ; and he would be sure to regard me with 
more or less ill-feelhig. Ignorant as he is of the 
pain from which I would save him, and feeling 
only the pain of a balked desire, he could not fail 
to look upon me as the cause of that pain. To save 
him from a hurt which he caimot conceive, and 
which has therefore no existence for him, I inflict 
upon him a hurt which he feels keenly enough ; 
and so become, from his point of view, a minister 
of evil. My best course then, is simply to warn 
him of the danger, and to be ready to prevent any 
serious damage." And following out this conclu- 
sion, she says to the child — " I fear you will hurt 
yourself if you do that." Suppose, now, that the 
child, perseveres, as he will very probably do ; and 
suppose that he ends by burning himself. What 
are the results? In the first place he has gained 
an experience which he must gain Gventually, and 
which, for his own safety he cannot gain too soon. 
And in the second place, he has found that his 
mother's disapproval or wai'ning was meant for his 
welfare : he has a further positive exj>erience of her 
benevolence — a further reason for placing confi- 
dence in her judgment and her kindness — a further 
reason for loving her. 

Of course, in those occasional hazards where 
there is a risk of broken limbs or other serious 
bodily injury, forcible prevention is called for. 
But leaving out these extreme cases, the system 



CIIILDEEN MUST LEAEN BY EXPERIENCE. 199 

pursued should be not that of guarding a child 
against the small dangers into Avhich it daily runs, 
but that of advising and warning it against thera. 
And by consistently pursuing this course, a much 
stronger filial affection will be generated than com- 
monly exists. If here, as elsewhere, the discipline 
of the natural reactions is allowed to come into 
play — if in all those out-of-door scramblings and 
in-door experiments, by which children are liable 
to hurt themselves, they are allowed to persevere, 
subject only to dissuasion more or less earnest ac- 
cording to the risk, there cannot fail to arise an 
ever-increasing faith in the parental friendship and 
guidance. Not only, as before shown, does the 
adoption of this principle enable fathers and moth- 
ers to avoid the chief part of that odium which at- 
taches to the infliction of positive punishment ; but, 
as we here see, it enables them further to avoid the 
odium that attaches to constant thwartings ; and 
even to turn each of those incidents which com- 
monly cause squabbles, into a means of strength- 
ening the mutual good feeling. Instead of being 
told in words, which deeds seem to contradict, that 
their parents are theii best friends, children will 
learn this truth by a consistent daily experience ; 
and so learning it, will acquire a degree of trust 
and attachment which nothing else can give. 

And now having indicated the much more sym- 
pathetic relation which must result from the habit- 
ual use of this method, let us return to the quea- 



200 MORAL EDUCATION. 

tion above put — How is this method to be apphetl 
to the graver offences ? 

Note, in the first place, that these graver of- 
fences are likely to be both less frequent and less 
grave under the regime we have described than un- 
der the ordinary regime. The perpetual ill-behav- 
iour of many children is itself the consequence of 
that chronic irritation in which they are kept by 
bad management. The state of isolation and an- 
tagonism produced by frequent punishment, neces- 
sarily deadens the sympathies ; necessarily, there- 
fore, opens the way to those transgressions which 
the sympathies should check. That harsh treat- 
ment which children of the same family inflict on 
each other is often, in great measure, a reflex of the 
harsh treatment they receive from adults — partly 
suggested by direct example, and partly generated 
by the ill-temper and the tendency to vicarious re- 
taliation, which follow chastisements and scoldings. 
It cannot be questioned that the greater activity of 
the aftections and happier state of feeling, main- 
tained in children by the discipline we have de- 
scribed, must prevent their sins against each other 
from being either so great or so frequent. More- 
over, the still more reprehensible offences, as lies 
and petty thefts, will, by the same causes, be di- 
minished. Domestic estrangement is a fruitful 
source of such transgressions. It is a law of human 
nature, visible enough to all who observe, that 
those who are debarred the higher gratifications 
fall back upon the lower ; those who have no sym- 



TKEATMENT OF GKAVE OFFENCES. 201 

pathetic pleasures seek selfish ones ; and hence, 
conversely, the maintenance of happier relations 
between parents and children is calculated to di- 
minish the number of those offences of which self- 
ishness is the origin. 

When, however, such offences are committed, 
as they will occasionally be even under the best 
system, the discipline of consequences may still be 
resorted to ; and if there exist that bond of confi- 
dence and affection which we have described, this 
discipline will be found eflicient. For what are 
the natural consequences, say, of a theft? They 
are of two kinds — direct and indirect. The direct 
consequence, as dictated by pure equity, is that of 
making restitution. An absolutely just ruler (and 
every parent should aim to be one) will demand 
that, wherever it is possible, a wrong act shall be 
undone by a right one : and in the case of theft 
this implies either the restoration of the thing 
stolen, or, if it is consumed, then the giving of an 
equivalent : which, in the case of a child, may be 
effected out of its pocket-money. The indirect and 
more serious consequence is the grave displeasure 
of parents — a consequence which inevitably follows 
among all peoples sufiiciently civilized to regard 
theft as a crime ; and the manifestation of this dis- 
pleasure is, in this instance, the most severe of the 
natural reactions produced by the wrong action. 
" But," it will be said, " the manifestation of parental 
displeasure, either in words or blows, is the ordi- 
nary course in these cases : the method leads here 



202 MORAL EDUCATION. 

to nothing new." Yeiy true. Already we have 
admitted that, in some directions, this method is 
spontaneously pursued. Already we have shown 
that there is a more or less manifest tendency for 
educational systems to gravitate towards the true 
system. And here we may remark, as before, that 
the intensity of this natural reaction will, in the 
beneficent order of things, adjust itself to the re- 
quirements — that this parental displeasure will 
vent itself in violent measures during compara- 
tively barbarous times, when the children are also 
comparatively barbarous; and will express itself 
less cruelly in those more advanced social states in 
which, by implication, the children are amenable 
to milder treatment. But what it chiefly concerns 
us here to observe is, that the manifestation of 
strong parental displeasure, produced by one of 
these gi'aver offences, wdll be potent for good just 
in proportion to the warmth of the attachment ex- 
isting between parent and child. Just in propor- 
tion as the discipline of the natural consequences 
has been consistently pursued in other cases, will 
it be efficient in this case. Proof is within the ex- 
perience of all, if they will look for it. 

For does not every man know that when he has 
offended another person, the amount of genuine re- 
gret he feels (of course, leaving worldly considera- 
tions out of the question) varies with the degree of 
sympathy he has for that person ? Is he not con- 
Bcious that when the person offended stands to him 
\n the position of an enemy, the having given him 



EFFECTS OF TKUE SYMPATHY AND FRIENDSHIP. 203 

annoyance is apt to be a source rather of secret 
satisfaction than of sorrow ? Does he not remem- 
ber that where umbrage has been taken by some 
total stranger, he has felt much less concern than 
he would have done had such umbrage been taken 
by one with whom he was intimate ? While, con- 
versely, has not the anger of an admired and cher- 
ished friend been regarded by him as a serious 
misfortune, long and keenly regretted? Clearly, 
then, the eifects of parental displeasure upon chil- 
dren must similarly depend upon the pre-existing 
relationship. Where there is an established alien- 
ation, the feeling of a child who has transgressed 
is a purely selfish fear of the evil consequences 
likely to fall upon it in the shape of physical pen- 
alties or deprivations ; and after these evil conse- 
quences have been inflicted, there are aroused an 
antagonism and dislike which are morally inju- 
rious, and tend further to increase the alienation. 
On the contrary, where there exists a w\arm filial af- 
fection produced by a consistent parental friendship 
— a friendship not dogmatically asserted as an excuse 
for punishments and denials, but daily exhibited in 
ways that a child can comprehend — a friendship 
which avoids needless thwartings, which warns 
against impending evil consequences, and which 
sympathizes with juvenile pursuits — there the state 
of mind caused by parental displeasure will not 
only be salutary as a check to future misconduct 
of like kind, but will also be intrinsically salutary. 
The moral pain consequent upon having, for the 



204 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

time "bein^, lost so loved a friend, will stand in 
place of the physical pain usually inflicted ; and 
where this attachment exists, will prove equally, if 
not more, efficient. While instead of the fear and 
vindictiveness excited by the one course, there will 
be excited by the other more or less of sympathy 
with parental sorrow, a genuine regret for having 
caused it, and a desire, by some atonement, to re- 
establish the habitual friendly relationship. In- 
stead of bringing into play those purely egoistic 
feelings whose predominance is the cause of crimi- 
nal acts, there will be brought into play those altru- 
istic feelings which check criminal acts. Thus the 
discipline of the natural consequences is applicable 
to grave as well as trivial faults ; and the practice 
of it conduces not simply to the repression, but to 
the eradication of such faults. 

In brief, the truth is that savageness begets 
savageness, and gentleness begets gentleness. Chil- 
dren who are unsympathetically treated become 
relatively unsympathetic ; whereas treating them 
with due fellow-feeling is a means of cultivating 
their fellow-feeling. With family governments as 
with political ones, a harsh despotism itself gene- 
rates a great part of the crimes it has to repress ; 
while conversely a mild and liberal rule not only 
avoids many causes of dissension, but so amelio- 
rates the tone of feeling as to diminish the ten- 
dency to transgression. As John Locke long since 
remarked, " Great severity of punishment does but 
very little good, nay, great harm, in education j 



LOCKE ON THE EFFECTS OF CHASTISEMENT. 205 

and I believe it will be found that, cceteris paribus^ 
those children who have been most chastised sel- 
dom make the best men." In confirmation of which 
opinion we may cite the fact not long since made 
public by Mr. Rogers, Chaplain of the Pentonville 
Prison, that those juvenile criminals who have 
been whipped are those who most frequently return 
to prison. On the other hand, as exhibiting the 
beneficial eifects of a kinder treatment, we will in- 
stance the fact stated to us by a French lady, in 
whose house we recently staid in Paris. Apologiz- 
ing for the disturbance daily caused by a little boy 
who was unmanageable both at home and at school, 
she expressed her fear that there was no remedy 
save that which had succeeded in the case of an 
elder brother ; namely, sending him to an English 
school. She explained that at various schools in 
Paris this elder brother had proved utterly untract- 
able ; that in despair they had followed the advice 
to send him to England ; and that on his return 
home he was as good as he had before been bad. 
And this remarkable change she ascribed entirely 
to the comparative mildness of the English disci- 
pline. 

After this exposition of principles, our remaining 
space may best be occupied by a few of the chief 
maxims and rules deduciblc from them; and with 
a view to brevity we will put these in a more or 
less hortatory form. 

Do not expect from a child any great amount of 
moral goodness. During early years every civil- 



206 MOKAL EDUCATION. 

ized man passes through that phase of character 
exhibited by the barbarous race from which he is 
descended. As the child's features — flat nose, for- 
ward-opening nostrils, large lips, wide-apart eyes, 
absent frontal sinus, &c. — resemble for a time those 
of the savage, so, too, do his instincts. Hence the 
tendencies to cruelty, to thieving, to lying, so gen- 
eral among children — tendencies which, even with- 
out the aid of discipline, will become more or less 
modified just as the features do. The popular idea 
that children are " innocent," while it may be true 
in so far as it refers to evil hioioledge, is totally 
false in so far as it refers to evil wipulses, as half 
an hour's observation in the nursery will j^rove to 
any one. Boys when left to themselves, as at a 
public school, treat each other far more brutally 
than men do ; and were they left to themselves at 
an earlier age their brutality would be still more 
conspicuous. 

'^oi only is it unwise to set up a high standard 
for juvenile good conduct, but it is even unwise to 
use very urgent incitements to such good conduct. 
Already most peoj^le recognise the detrimental re- 
sults of intellectual precocity ; but there remains 
to be recognised the truth that there is a moral 
'precocity which is also detrimental. Our higher 
moral faculties, like our higher intellectual ones, 
are comparatively complex. By consequence they 
are both comparatively late in their evolution. 
And with the one as with the other, a very early 
activity produced by stimulation will be at the ex- 



SLOW EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL FACULTIES. 207 

pense of the future character. Hence the not un- 
common fact that those wlio during childhood were 
instanced as models of juvenile goodness, by-and-by 
undergo some disastrous and seemingly inexplica- 
ble change, and end by being not above but below 
par ; while relatively exemplary men are often the 
issue of a childhood by no means so promising. 

Be content, therefore, with moderate measures 
and moderate results. Constantly bear in mind 
the fact that a higher morality, like a higher intelli- 
gence, must be reached by a slow growth ; and 
you will then have more patience with those imper- 
fections of nature which your child hourly displays. 
You will be less prone to that constant scolding, 
and threatening, and forbidding, by which many 
parents induce a chronic domestic irritation, in the 
foolish hope that they will thus make their chil- 
dren what they should be. 

This comparatively liberal form of domestic 
government, which does not seek despotically to 
regulate all the details of a child's conduct, neces- 
sarily results from the system for which we have 
been contending. Satisfy yourself with seeing that 
your child always suffers the natural consequences 
of his actions, and you will avoid that excess of 
control in which so many parents err. Leave him 
wherever you can to the discipline of experience, 
and you will so save him from that hothouse virtue 
which over-regulation produces in yielding natures, 
or that demoralizing antagonism which it produces 
in independent ones. 
13 



"208 MORAL EDUCATION. 

By aiming in all cases to administer the natural 
reactions to yonr child's actions, you will put an 
advantageous check upon your own temper. The 
method of moral education pursued by many, we 
fear by most, parents, is little else than that (►f 
venting their anger in the way that first suggests 
itself. The slaps, and rough shakings, and sharp 
words, with which a mother commonly visits her 
offspring's small offences (many of them not of- 
fences considered intrinsically), are verj' generally 
but the nuinifestations of her own ill-controlled 
feelings — result much more from the promptings of 
those feelings than from a wish to benefit the 
offenders. While they are injurious to her own 
character, these ebullitions tend, by alienating her 
children and by decreasing their respect for her, to 
diminish her influence over them. But by pausing 
in each case of transgression to consider what is 
the natural consequence, and how that natural con- 
sequence may best be brought home to the trans- 
gressor, some little time is necessarilj^ obtained for 
the mastery of yourself; the mere blind anger first 
aroused in you settles down into a less vehement 
feeling, and one not so likely to mislead you. 

Do not, however, seek to behave as an utterly 
passionless instrument. Remember that besides 
the natural consequences of your child's conduct 
which the working of things tends to bring round 
on him, your own approbation or disapprobation is 
also a natural consequence, and one of the ordained 
aii:encies for o-uidinii: him. The error which wo 



I 



CAUTIOUS USE OF PARENTAL DISPLEASURE. 209 

have been combating is that of substituting parental 
displeasure and its artilicial ]>enalties, for tlie pen- 
alties which nature has established. But while it 
should not be substituted for these natural penalties, 
it by no means follows that it should not, in some 
form, acconijHiny them. The secondary kind of 
punishment should not usurp the place of the 
frimcury kind ; but, in moderation, it may rightly 
supplement the primary kind, Such amount of dis- 
approval, or sorrow, or indignation, as you feel, 
should be expressed in words or manner or other- 
wise; subject, of course, to the approval of your 
judgment. The degree and kind of feeling pro- 
duced in you will necessarily depend upon your 
own character, and it is therefore useless to say it 
should be this or that. All that can be recom- 
mended is, that you should aim to modify the feel- 
ing into that which you believe ought to be enter- 
tained. Beware, however, of the two extremes ; 
not only in respect of the intensity, but in respect 
of the duration of your displeasure. On the one 
hand, anxiously avoid that weak impulsiveness, so 
general among mothers, wdiich scolds and forgives 
almost in the same breath. On the other hand, do 
not unduly continue to show estrangement of feel- 
ing, lest you accustom your child to do without 
your friendship, and so lose your influence over 
him. The moral reactions called forth from you by 
)^our child's actions, you should as much as possi- 
ble assimilate to those wdiicli you conceive would 
be called forth from a parent of perfect nature. 



210 MORAL EDUCATION. 

Be sparing of commands. Command only in 
those cases in which other means are inapplicable, 
or have failed. " In frequent orders the parents' 
advantage is more considered than the cliild's," 
says Kichter. As in primitive societies a breach 
of law is punished, not so much because it is in- 
trinsically wrong as because it is a disregard of the 
king's authority — a rebellion against him ; so in 
many families, the penalty visited on a transgressor 
proceeds less from reprobation of the offence than 
from anger at the disobedience. Listen to the ordi- 
nary speeches — " How dare you disobey me'^ " " I 
tell you I'll make you do it, sir." " I'll soon teach 
you who is master " — and then consider what the 
words, the tone, and the manner imply. A deter- 
mination to subjugate is much more conspicuous in 
them than an anxiety for the child's welfare. For 
the time being the attitude of mind differs but little 
from that of the despot bent on punishing a recalci- 
trant subject. The right-feeling parent, however, 
like the philanthropic legislator, will not rejoice in 
coercion, but will rejoice in dispensing with coercion. 
He will do without law in all cases where other 
modes of regulating conduct can be successfully em- 
ployed ; and he will regret the having recourse to 
law when it is necessary. As Richter remarks — 
"The best rule in politics is said to be ''jpas trop 
gouverner:'' it is also true in education." And in 
spontaneous conformity with this maxim, parents 
whose lust of dominion is restrained by a true sense 
of duty, will aim to make their children control 



WISE PENALTIES, BUT INEVITABLE, 211 

themselves wherever it is possible, and will fall back 
upon absolutism onlj as a last resort. 

But whenever jou do command, command with 
decision and consistency. If the case is one which 
really cannot be otherwise dealt with, then issue 
your fiat, and having issued it, never afterwards 
swerve from it. Consider well beforehand what 
you are going to do ; weigh all the consequences ; 
think whether your firmness of purpose will be 
sufiicient ; and then, if you finally make the law, 
enforce it uniformly at whatever cost. Let your 
penalties be like the penalties inflicted by inani- 
mate nature — inevitable. The liot cinder burns a 
child the first time he seizes it; it burns him the 
second time ; it burns him the third time ; it burns 
him every time ; and he very soon learns not to 
touch the hot cinder. If you are equally consist- 
ent — if the consequences which you tell your child 
will follow certain acts, follow with like uniformity, 
he will soon come to respect your laws as he does 
those of Nature. And this respect once established 
will prevent endless domestic evils. Of errors in 
education one of the worst is that of inconsistency. 
As in a connnunity, crimes multiply when there is 
no certain administration of justice ; so in a fami- 
ly, an immense increase of transgressions results 
from a hesitating or irregular infliction of penal- 
ties. A weak mother, who perpetually threatens 
and rarely performs — who makes rules in haste and 
repents of them at leisure — who treats the same 
offence now with severity and now with leniency, 



212 MORAL EDUCATION. 

according as the passing humour dictates, is laying 
up miseries both for herself and her children. She 
is making herself contemptible in their eyes ; she 
is setting them an example of uncontrolled feel- 
ings ; she is encouraging them to transgress by the 
prospect of probable impunity ; she is entailing 
endless scpiabbles and accompanying damage to 
her own temper and the tempers of her little ones ; 
she is reducing their minds to a moral chaos, which 
after-years of bitter experience wdll with difficulty 
bring into order. Better even a barbarous form of 
domestic government carried out consistently, than 
a humane one inconsistently carried ont. Again 
we say, avoid coercive measures Mdienever it is 
possible to do so ; but when you find despotism 
really necessary, be despotic in good earnest. 

Bear constantly in mind the truth that the aim 
of your discipline should be to j^roduce a self-gov- 
erning being; not to produce a being to be gov- 
erned hy others. Were your children fated to pass 
their lives as slaves, you could not too much accus- 
tom them to slavery during their childhood ; but 
as they are by-and-by to be free men, WMth no one 
to control their daily conduct, you cannot too much 
accustom them to self-control while they are still 
under your eye. This it is which makes the sys- 
tem of discipline by natural consequences, so espe- 
cially appropriate to the social state which we in 
England have now reached. Under early, tyran- 
nical forms of society, when one of the chief evils 
the citizen had to fear was the anger of his supc 



PKOGKESSIVE NEED OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 213 

riors, it was well tliat during childhood parental 
vengeance should be a predominant means of gov- 
ernment. But now that the citizen has little to 
fear from any one — now that the good or evil which 
he experiences throughout life is mainly that which 
in the nature of things results from his own con- 
duct, it is desirable that from his first years he 
should begin to learn, experimentally, the good or 
evil consequences which naturally follow, this or 
that conduct. Aim, therefore, to diminish the 
amount of parental government as fast as you can 
substitute for it in your child's mind that self-gov- 
ernment arising from a foresight of results. In in- 
fancy a considerable amount of absolutism is ne- 
cessary. A three-year old urchin playing with an 
open razor, cannot be allowed to learn by this dis- 
cipline of consequences ; for the consequences may, 
in such a case, be too serious. But as intelligence 
increases, the number of instances calling for per- 
emptory interference may be, and should be, di- 
minished ; with the view of gradually ending them 
as maturity is approached. All periods of transi- 
tion are dangerous ; and the most dangerous is the 
transition from the restraint of the family circle to 
the non-restraint of the world. Hence the impor 
tance of pursuing the policy we advocate ; which, 
alike by cultivating a child's faculty of self-restraint, 
by continually increasing the degree in which it is 
left to its self-constraint, and by so bringing it, step 
by step, to a state of unaided self-restraint, obliter- 
ates the ordinary sudden and hazardous change 



214 MORAL EDUCATION. 

from externally-governed youth to internallj^-gov- 
erned maturity. Let the history of your domestic 
rule typify, in little, the history of our political 
rule : at the outset, autocratic control, where con- 
trol is really needful ; by-and-by an incipient con- 
stitutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject 
gains some express recognition ; successive exten- 
sions of this liberty of the subject ; gradually end- 
ing in parental abdication. 

Do not regret the exhibition of considerable 
self-will on the part of your children. It is the 
correlative of that diminished coerciveness so con- 
spicuous in modern education. The greater tern 
dency to assert freedom of action on the one side, 
corresponds to the smaller tendency to tyrannize on 
the other. They both indicate an approach to the 
system of discipline we contend for, under which 
children will be more and more led to rule them- 
selves by the experience of natural consequences ; 
and they are both the accompaniments of our more 
advanced social state. The independent English 
boy is the father of the independent English man ; 
and you cannot have the last without the first, 
German teachers say that they had rather manage 
a dozen German boys than one English one. Shall 
we, therefore, wish that our boys had the managea- 
bleiiess of the German ones, and with it the sub- 
missiveness and political serfdom of adult Ger- 
mans ? Or shall we not rather tolerate in our boys 
those feelings which make them free men, and 
modify our methods accordingly ? 



NECESSITY OF PARENTAL DISCEIMINATION. 215 

Lastly, always remember that to educate rightly 
is not a simple and easy thing, but a complex and 
extremely difficult thing : the hardest task which 
devolves upon adult life. The rough and ready 
style of domestic government is indeed practicable 
by the meanest and most uncultivated intellects. 
Slaps and sharp words are penalties that suggest 
themselves alike to the least reclaimed barbarian 
and the most stolid peasant. Even bj-utes can use 
this method of discipline; as you may see in the 
growl and half-bite with which a bitch will check 
a too-exigeant puppy. But if you would carry out 
with success a rational and civilized system, you 
must be prepared for considerable mental exertion 
— for some study, some ingenuity, some patience, 
some self-control. You will have habitually to 
trace the consequences of conduct — to consider 
what are the results which in adult life follow 
certain kind of acts ; and then you will have to 
devise methods by which parallel results shall be 
entailed on tlie parallel acts of your children. 
You will daily be called upon to analyze the mo- 
tives of juvenile conduct: you must distinguish 
between acts that are really good and those which, 
though externally simulating them, proceed from 
inferior impulses; while you must be ever, on your 
guard against the cruel mistake not unfrequently 
made, of translating neutral acts into transgres- 
sions, or ascribing worse feelings than were enter- 
tained. You must more or less modify your method 
to suit the disposition of eacli child ; and must be 



216 MORAL EDUCATION. 

prepared to make further modifications as each 
chikl's disposition enters on a new phase. Yonr 
faith will often be taxed to maintain the requisite 
perseverance in a course which seems to produce 
little or no effect. Especially if you are dealing 
with children who have been wrongly treated, you 
must be prepared for a lengthened trial of patience 
before succeeding with better methods ; seeing that 
that which is not easy even where a right state of 
feeling has been established from the beginning, 
becomes doubly diflicult when a wrong state of 
feeling has to be set right. Not only will you have 
constantly to analyze the motives of your children, 
but you will have to analyze your own motives^ — 
to discriminate between those internal suggestions 
springing from a true parental solicitude, and those 
which spring from your own selfishness, from your 
love of ease, from your lust of dominion. And 
then, more trying still, you will have not only to 
detect, but to curb these baser impulses. In brief, 
you will have to carry on your higher education at 
the same time that you are educating your chil- 
dren. Intellectually you must cultivate to good 
purpose that most complex of subjects — human na- 
ture and its laws, as exhibited in your children, in 
yourself, and in the world. Morally, you must 
keep in constant exercise your higher feelings, and 
restrain your lower. It is a truth yet remaining to 
be recognised, that the last stage in the mental de- 
velopment of each man and woman is to be reached 
only through the proper discharge of the parental 



THE HIGH DISCIPLINE OF PARENTHOOD. 217 

duties. And when this truth is recognised, it will 
be seen how admirable is the ordination in virtue 
of which human beings are led by their strongest 
affections to subject themselves to a discipline 
which they would else elude. 

While some will probably regard this concep- 
tion of education as it should be, with doubt and 
discouragement, others will, we think, perceive in 
the exalted ideal which it involves, evidence of its 
truth. That it cannot be realized by tlie impulsive, 
the unsympathetic, and the short-sighted, but de- 
mands the higher attributes of human nature, they 
will see to be evidence of its fitness for the more 
advanced states of humanity. Though it calls for 
much labour and self-sacrifice, they will see that 
it promises an abundant return of happiness, im- 
mediate and remote. They will see that while in 
its injurious effects on both parent and child a bad 
system is twice cursed, a good system is twice 
blessed — it blesses him tjiat trains and him that's 
trained. 

It will be seen that we have said nothing in 
this Chapter about the transcendental distinction 
between right and wrong, of which wise men know 
so little, and children nothing. All thinkers are 
agreed that we may find the criterion of right in 
the effect of actions, if we do not find the rule 
there ; and that is sutficient for the purpose we 
have had in view. Nor have we introduced the 
religious element. We have confined our inquiries 



218 MORAL EDUCATION. 

to a nearer, and a much more neglected field, 
though a very important one. Our readers may 
supplement our thoughts in any way they please ; 
we are only concerned that they should be accepted 
as far as they go. 



CHAPTER lY. 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Equally at the squire's table after the with- 
drawal of the ladies, at the farmers' market-ordi- 
nary, and at the village ale-house, the topic which, 
after the political question of the day, excites per- 
haps the most general interest, is the management 
of animals. Riding home from hunting, the con- 
versation is pretty sure to gravitate towards horse- 
breeding, and pedigrees, and comments on this or 
that ' good point ; ' while a day on the moors is 
very unlikely to pass without something being said 
on the treatment of dog-s. When crossins the 
fields together from church, the tenants of adjacent 
farms are apt to pass from criticisms on the ser- 
mon to criticisms on the weather, the crops, and 
the stock ; and thence to slide into discussions on 
the various kinds of fodder and their feeding quali- 
ties. Hodge and Giles, after comparing notes over 
their respective pig-styes, show by their remarks 
that they have been more or less observant of their 
masters' beasts and sheep ; and of the effects pro- 
duced on them by this or that kind of treatment. 
Nor is it only among the rural population that the 
regulations of the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, 



220 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

and the slieep-pen, are favourite subjects. In 
•towns, too, the numerous artisans who keep clogs, 
the young men M'ho are rich enough to now and 
then indulge tiieir sporting tendencies, and tlieir 
more staid seniors who talk over agricultural pro- 
gress or read Mr. Mechi's annual reports and Mr. 
Caird's letters to the Times, form, when added to- 
gether, a large portion of the inhabitants. Take 
the adult males throughout the kingdom, and a 
great majority wdll be found to show some interest 
in the breeding, rearing, or training of animals, of 
one kind or other. 

But, during after-dinner conversations, or at 
other times of like intercourse, who hears anything 
said about the rearing of children ? When the 
country gentleman has paid his daily visit to the 
stable, and personally inspected the condition and 
treatment of his horses ; when he has glanced at 
his minor live stock, and given directions about 
them; how often does he go up to the nursery and 
examine into its dietary, its hours, its ventilation? 
On his library shelves may be found White's Fa7'- 
riery, Stephen's Booh of the Farm, Nimrod on the 
Condition of Hunters ', and with the contents of 
these he is more or less familiar ; but how many 
books has he read on the management of infancy 
and childhood ? The fattening properties of oil- 
cake, the relative values of hay and chopped straw, 
the dangers of unlimited clover, are points on 
which every landlord, farmer, and peasant has 
some knowledge ; but what proportion of them 



IMPKOVEMENT OF INFEKIOK ANlilALS. 221 

know mucli about the qualities of the food they 
give their cliildren, and its fitness to the constitu- 
tional needs of growing boys and girls ? Perhaps 
the business interests of these classes will be as- 
signed as accounting for this anomaly. The explana' 
tion is inadequate, however ; seeing that the same 
contrast holds more or less among other classes. 
Of a score of townspeople few, if any, would 
prove ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to 
work a horse soon after it has eaten ; and yet, of 
this same score, supposing them all to be fathers, 
probably not one would be found who had consid- 
ered whether the time elapsing between his chil- 
dren's dinner and their resumption of lessons was 
sufiicient. Indeed, on cross-examination, nearly 
every man would disclose the latent opinion that 
the regimen of the nursery was no concern of his. 
" Oh, I leave all those things to the women," would 
probably be the reply. And in most cases the tone 
and manner of this reply would convey the impli- 
cation, that such cares are not consistent with mas- 
culine dignity. 

Consider the fact from any but the conventional 
point of view, and it will seem strange that while 
the raising of first-rate bullocks is an occupation 
on which men of education willingly bestow much 
time, inquiry, and thought, the bringing up of fine 
human beings is an occupation tacitly voted un- 
worthy of their attention. Mammas who have 
been taught little but languages, music, and accom- 
plishments, aided by nurses full of antiquated pre- 



222 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

juclices, are held competent regulators of the food, 
clothing, and exercise of children. Meanwhile the 
fathers read books and periodicals, attend agricul- 
tural meetings, trj experiments, and engage in dis- 
cussions, all with the view of discovering how to 
fatten prize pigs ! Infinite pains will be taken to 
produce a racer that shall win the Derby : none to 
produce a modern athlete. Had Gulliver narrated 
of the Laputans that the men vied with each other 
in learning how best to rear the offspring of other 
creatures, and were careless of learning how best 
to rear their own offspring, he would have paral- 
leled any of the other absurdities he ascribes to 
them. 

The matter is a serious one, however. Ludi- 
crous as is the antithesis, the fact it expresses is not 
less disastrous. As remarks a suggestive writer, 
the first requisite to success in life is " to be a good 
animal ;" and to be a nation of good animals is the 
first condition to national prosperity. Not only is 
it that the event of a war often turns on the strength 
and hardiness of soldiers ; but it is that the con- 
tests of commerce are in part determined by the 
bodily endurance of producers. Thus far we have 
found no reason to fear trials of strength with other 
races in either of these fields. But there are not 
wanting signs that our powers will presently be 
taxed to the uttermost. Already nnder the keen 
competition of modern life, the application required 
of almost every one is such as few can bear with- 
out more or less injury. Already thousands break 



SCHOOL OF "muscular cukistianitv." 223 

down under the high pressure they are subject to. 
If this pressure continues to increase, as it seems 
likely to do, it will try severely all but the sound- 
est constitutions. Hence it is becoming of especial 
importance that the training of children should be 
so carried on, as not only to lit them mentally for 
the struggle before them, but also to make them 
physically fit to bear its excessive wear and tear. 

Happily the matter is beginning to attract at- 
tention. The writings of Mr. Kingsley indicate a 
reaction against over-culture ; carried, as reactions 
usually are, somewhat too far. Occasional letters 
and leaders in the newspapers have show^n an 
awakening interest in physical training. And the 
formation of a school, significantly nicknamed that 
of " muscular Christianity," implies a growing 
opinion that our present methods of bringing up 
children do not sufficiently regard the welfare of the 
body. The topic is evidently ripe for discussion. 

To conform the regimen of the nursery and the 
school to the established truths of modern science 
— this is the desideratum. It is time that the ben- 
efits which our sheep and oxen have for years past 
derived from the investigations of the laboratory, 
should be participated in by our children. Witl)- 
out calling in question the great importance of 
horse-training and pig-feeding, we would suggest 
that, as the rearing of well-grown men and women 
is also of some moment, the conclusions indicated 
by theory, and endorsed by practice, ought to be 
acted on in the last case as in the first. Probably 
14 



22J: niYSICAL EDUCATION. 

not a few will be startled — perhaps offended — by 
this collocation of ideas. But it is a fact not to be 
disputed, and to which we had best reconcile our- 
selves, that man is subject to the same organic 
laws as inferior creatures. No anatomist, no ph}'?- 
iologist, no chemist, will for a moment hesitate to 
assert, that the general principles which rule over 
the vital processes in animals equally rule over the 
vital processes in man. And a candid admission 
of this fact is not without its reward : namely, that 
the truths established by observation and experi- 
ment on brutes, become more or less available for 
human guidance. Rudimentary as is the Science 
of Life, it has already attained to certain funda- 
mental principles underlying the development of 
all organisms, the human included. That which 
has now to be done, and that which we shall en- 
deavour in some measure to do, is to show the 
bearing of these fundamental principles upon the 
physical training of childhood and youth. 

The rhythmical tendency which is traceable in 
all departments of social life — which is illustrated 
in the access of despotism after revolution, or, among 
ourselves, in the alternation of reforming epochs and 
conservative epochs — which, after a dissolute age, 
brings an age of asceticism, and conv'ersely — wiiicb, 
in commerce, produces the regularly recurring in- 
flations and panics — which carries the devotees of 
fashion from one absurd extreme to the opposite 
one ; — this rhythmical tendency affects also our 



DIETARY EEACTIONS. 225 

table-liabits, and by implication, the dietary of the 
young. After a period distinguished by hard drink- 
ing and hard eating, has come a period of compara- 
tive sobriety, which, in teetotalism and vegetarian- 
ism, exhibits extreme forms of its protest against the 
riotous living of the past. And along with this 
change in the regimen of adults, has come a paral- 
lel change in the regimen for boys and girls. In 
past generations, the belief was, that the more a 
child could be induced to eat, the better ; and even 
now, among farmers and in remote districts, where 
traditional ideas most linger, parents may be found 
who tempt their children to gorge themselves. But 
among the educated classes, who chiefly display this 
reaction towards abstemiousness, there may be seen 
a decided leaning to the under-feeding, rather than 
the overfeeding, of children. Indeed their disgust 
for bygone animalism, is more clearly shown in the 
treatment of their offspring than in the treatment 
of themselves ; seeing that while their disguised 
asceticism is, in so far as their personal conduct is 
concerned, kept in check by their appetites, it has 
full play in legislating for juveniles. 

That over-feeding and under-feeding are both 
bad, is a truism. Of the two, however, the last is 
the worst. As writes a high authorit}^, " the effects 
of casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more 
easily corrected, than those of inanition." * Add 
to which, that where there has been no injudicious 
interference, repletion will seldom occur. " Excess 

* Ciiclopcedia of Practical Medicine. 



22G niTSICAL EDUCATION. 

is the vice rather of adults than of the young, wlio 
are rarely either gourmands or epicures, unless 
through the fault of those who rear them." * This 
system of restriction which many parents think so 
necessary, is based upon very inadequate observa- 
tion, and very erroneous reasoning. There is an 
over-legislation in the nursery, as well as an over- 
legislation in the State ; and one of the most injuri- 
ous forms of it is this limitation in the quantity of 
food. 

" But are children to be allowed to surfeit them- 
selves ? Shall they be suffered to take their till ot 
dainties and make themselves ill, as they certainly 
will do?" As thus put, the question admits of but 
one reply. But as thus put, it assumes the point at 
issue. We contend that, as appetite is a good guide 
to all the lower creation — as it is a good guide to 
the infant — as it is a good guide to the invalid — as 
it is a good guide to the differently-placed races of 
men, and as it is a good guide for every adult who 
leads a healthful life ; it may safely be inferred that 
it is a good guide for childhood. It would be 
strange indeed were it here alone untrustworthy. 

Probably not a few will read this reply with 
some impatience ; being able, as they think, to cite 
facts totally at variance with it. It will appear 
absurd if we deny the relevancy of these facts; and 
yet the paradox is quite defensible. The truth is, 
that the instances of excess which such persons 
have in mind, are usually the conseqiiences of the 

* Cyclopadia of Practical Medicine, 



"GUIDANCE OF APPETITE IN CHILDHOOD. 22T 

restrictive system they seem to justify. They are 
the sensual reactions caused by a more or less asce- 
tic regimen. They illustrate on a small scale that 
commonly remarked fact, that those who during 
youth have been subject to the most rigorous dis- 
cipline, are apt afterwards to rush into the wildest 
extravagances. They are analogous to those fright' 
ful phenomena, once not uncommon in convents, 
where nuns suddenly lapsed from the extremest 
austerities into an almost demoniac wickedness. 
They simply exhibit the uncontrollable vehemence 
of a long-denied desire. Consider the ordinary 
tastes and the ordinary treatment of children. The 
love of sweets is conspicuous and almost universal 
among thera. Probably ninety-nine people in a 
hundred, presume that there is nothing more in this 
than gratification of the palate ; and that, in com- 
mon with other sensual desires, it should be dis- 
couraged. The physiologist, however, whose dis- 
coveries lead him to an ever-increasing reverence 
for the arrangements of things, will suspect that 
there is something more in this love of sweets than 
the current hypothesis suj^poses ; and a little in- 
quiry confirms the suspicion. Any work on organic 
chemistry shows that sugar plays an important part 
in the vital processes. Both saccharine and fatty 
matters are eventually oxidized in the body; and 
there is an accompanying evolution of heat. Sugar 
is the form to which sundry other compounds have 
to be reduced before they are available as heat- 
making food ; and this, formation of sugar is carried 



228 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

on in the body. Not only is starch changed into 
sugar in the course of digestion, but it lias been 
proved by M. Claude Bernard that the liver is a 
factory in which other constituents of food are trans- 
formed into sugar. Now, when to the fact that 
children have a .marked desire for this valuable 
heat-food, we join the fact that they have usually a 
marked dislike to that food which gives out the 
greatest amount of heat during its oxidation (name- 
ly, fat), we shall see strong reason for thinking that 
excess of the one compensates for defect of the other 
— that the organism demands more sugar because 
it cannot deal with much fat. Again, children are 
usually very fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of all 
kinds are their delight ; and, in the absence of any- 
thing better, they will devour unripe gooseberries and 
the sourest of crabs. Now, not only are vegetable 
acids, in common with mineral ones, very good 
tonics, and beneficial as such when taken in modera- 
tion ; but they have, when administered in their 
natural forms, other advantages. " Ripe fruit," 
says Dr. Andrew Combe, " is more freely given on 
the Continent than in this country ; and, particularly 
when the bowels act imperfectly, it is often very 
useful." See, then, the discord between the instinc- 
tive wants of children and their habitual treatment. 
Here are two dominant desires, which there is good 
reason to believe express certain needs of the juve- 
nile constitution ; and not only are they ignored in 
the nursery regimen, but there is a general ten- 
dency to forbid the gratification of them. Bread' 



KESTKICTED DIET PKOVOKES EXCESS. 229 

and-niilk in the morning, tea and bread-and-butter 
at night, or some dietary equally insipid, is rigidly 
adhered to ; and any ministration to the palate is 
thought not only needless but wrong. What is the 
necessary consequence ? Wlien, on fete-days there 
is an unlimited access to good things — when a gift 
of pocket-money brings the contents of the confec- 
tioner's window within reach, or when by some 
accident the free run of a fruit-garden is obtained ; 
then the long-denied, and therefore intense, desires 
lead to great excesses. There is an impromptu 
carnival, caused not only by the release from past 
restraints, but also by the consciousness that a long 
Lent will begin on the morrow. And then, when 
the evils of repletion display themselves, it is 
argued that children must not be left to the guid- 
ance of their appetites ! These disastrous results of 
artificial restrictions, are themselves cited as prov- 
ing the need for further restrictions ! We contend, 
therefore, that the reasoning commonly used to 
justity this system of interfei'ence is vicious. We 
contend that, were children allowed daily to par- 
take of these more sapid edibles, for which there is 
a physiological requirement, they would rarely ex- 
ceed, as they now mostly do Alien they have the 
opportunity : were fruit, as Dr. Combe recommends, 
" to constitute a part of the regular food " (given, as 
he advises, not between meals, but along with 
them), there would be none of that craving which 
prompts the devouring of such fruits as crabs and 
sloes. And similarly in other cases. 



230 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Not onlj is it that the a priori reasons for trust- 
ing the appetites of children are so strong ; and 
that the reasons assigned for distrusting them are 
invalid ; but it is that no other guidance is worthy 
of any confidence. What is the value of this pa- 
rental judgment, set up as an alternative regulator? 
When to "Oliver asking for more," the mamma or 
the governess replies in the negative, on what data 
does she proceed ? She thinks he has had enough. 
But where are her grounds for so thinking? Has 
she some secret understanding with the boy's 
stomach — some clairvoyant power enabling her to 
discern the needs of his body ? If not, how can she 
safely decide ? Does she not know that the demand 
of the system for food is determined by numerous 
and involved causes — varies with the temperature, 
with the hygroraetric state of the air, with the elec- 
tric state of the air — varies also according to the 
exercise taken, according to the kind and qualit}' of 
food eaten at the last meal, and according to the 
rapidity with which the last meal was digested? 
How can she calculate the result of such a combina- 
tion of causes ? As we heard said by the father of 
a tive-years-old boy, who stands a head taller than 
most of his age, and is proportionately robust, rosy, 
and active : — " I can see no artificial standard by 
which to mete out his food. If I say, ' this much is 
enough,' it is a mere guess ; and the guess is as like- 
ly to be wrong as right. Consequently, having no 
faith in guesses, I let him eat his fill." And cer- 
tainly, any one judging of his polic}^ by its efifects. 



NATURE AND INSTINCT TO BE TRUSTED. 231 

would be constrained to admit its wisdom. In truth, 
this confidence, with which most parents take upon 
themselves to legislate for the stomachs of their 
children, proves their unacquaintance with the 
]n-inciples of physiology: if they knew more, they 
would be more modest. " The ])ride of science is 
humble when compared with the pride of igno- 
rance." If any one would learn how little faith is to 
be placed in human judgments, and how much in 
the pre-established arrangements of things, let him 
compare the rashness of the inexperienced physician 
with the caution of the most advanced ; or let him 
dip into Sir John Forbes' work, On Nature and Art 
in the Cure of Disease ; and he will then see that, 
in proportion as men gain a greater knowledge of 
the laws of life, they come to have less confidence 
in themselves, and more in Nature. 

Turning from the cpiestion oi' quantify of food to 
that of quality^ we may discern tlie same ascetic 
tendency. Not simply a more or less restricted 
diet, but a comparatively low diet, is thought 
proper for children. Tlie current opinion is, that 
they should have but little animal food. Among 
the less M'ealthy classes, economy seems to have 
dictated this opinion — the wish has been father to 
the thought. Parents not affording to buy much 
meat, and liking meat themselves, answer the peti- 
tions of juveniles with — "Meat is not good for little 
boys and girls ;" and this, at first, probably nothing 
but a convenient excuse, has by repetition grown 
into an article of faith. While the classes with 



232 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

whom cost is not a consideration, have been swayed 
pai'tlj by the example of the majority, partly by 
the influence of nurses drawn from the lower classes, 
and in some measure by the reaction against past 
animalism. 

If, however, we inquire for the basis of this 
opinion, we find little or none. It is a dogma re- 
peated and received witliout proof, like that which, 
for thousands of years, insisted on tlie necessity of 
swaddling-clothes. It may indeed be true that, to 
the young child's stomach, not yet endowed Avith 
much muscular power, meat, which requires con- 
siderable trituration before it can be made into 
chyme, is an unfit aliment. But this objection 
does not tell against animal food from which the 
fibrous part has been extracted ; nor does it apply 
when, after the lapse of tM^o or three years, consid' 
erable muscular vigour has been acquired. And 
while the evidence in support of this dogma, par- 
tially valid in the case of very young children, is 
not valid in the case of older children, who are; 
nevertheless, ordinarily treated in - conformity with 
the dogma, the adverse evidence is abundant and 
conclusive. The verdict of science is exactly oppo- 
site to the popular opinion. We have put the ques- 
tion to two of our leading physicians, and to sev- 
eral of the most distinguished physiologists, and 
they uniformly agree in the conclusion, that chil- 
dren should have a diet not less nutritive, but, if 
anything, wzw<^ nutritive than that of adults. 

The grounds for this conclusion are obvious, and 



CIIILDKEN Kl QUIRE A NUTRITIVE DIET. 233 

the reasoning simple. It needs but to compare 
the vital processes of a man with those of a boy, to 
see at once that the demand for sustenance is rela- 
tively greater in the boy than in the man. What 
are the ends for which a man requires food ? Each 
day his body undergoes more or less wear — wear 
through muscular exertion, wear of the nervous 
system through mental actions, wear of the viscera 
in carrying on the functions of life ; and the tissue 
thus wasted has to be renewed. Each day, too, by 
perpetual radiation, his body loses a large amount 
of heat ; and as, for the continuance of the vital 
actions, the temperature of the body must be main- 
tained, this loss has to be compensated by a con- 
stant production of heat: to wliich end cei'tain con- 
stituents of the food are unceasingly undergoing 
oxidation. To make up for the day's waste, and to 
supply fuel for the day's expenditure of heat, are, 
then, the sole purposes for which the adult requires 
food. Consider, now, the case of the boy. He, 
too, wastes the substance of his body by action ; 
and it needs but to note his restless activity to see 
that, in proportion to his bulk, he probably wastes 
as much as a man. He, too, loses heat by radia- 
tion ; and, as his body exposes a greater surface in 
pioportion to its mass than does that of a man, and 
therefore loses heat more rapidly, the quantity of 
heat-food he requires is, bulk for bulk, greater than 
that required by a man. So that even had the boy 
no other vital processes to carry on than the man 
has, he would need, relatively to his size, a some- 



234: PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

what larger supply of nutriment. But, besides re- 
pairing his body and maintaining its heat, the boy 
has to make new tissue — to grow. After waste 
and thermal loss have been provided for, such sur- 
plus of nutriment as remains, goes to the further 
building up of the frame ; and only in virtue of this 
surplus is normal growth possible — the growth that 
sometimes takes place in the absence of such sur- 
plus, causing a manifest prostration consequent up- 
on defective repair. How peremptory is the de- 
mand of the unfolding organism for materials, is 
seen alike in that " school-boy hunger," which 
after-life rarely parallels in intensity, and in the 
comparatively quick return of appetite. And if 
there needs further evidence of this extra necessity 
for nutriment, we have it in the fact that, during 
the famines following shipwrecks and other disas- 
ters, the children are the lirst to die. 

This relatively greater need for nutriment be- 
ing admitted, as it must perforce be, the question 
that remains is — shall we meet it by giving an ex- 
cessive quantity of what may be called dilute 
food, or a more moderate quantity of concentrated 
food? The nutriment obtainable from a given 
weight of meat is obtainable only from a larger 
weight of bread, or from a still larger weight of 
potatoes, and so on. To fulfil the requirement, 
the quantity must be increased as the nutritivcness 
is diminished. Shall we, then, respond to the ex- 
tra wants of the growing child by giving an ade- 
quate quantity of food as good as that of adults? 



ECONOMISING THE LABOUK OF DIGESTION. 235 

Or, regardless of the fact tliat its stomach has to 
dispose of a relatively larger quantity even of this 
good food, shall we further tax it by giving an in- 
ferior food in still greater quantity ? 

The answer is tolerably obvious. The more 
the labour of digestion can be economised, the 
more energy is left for the purposes of growth and 
action. The functions of the stomach and intes 
tines cannot be performed without a large supply 
of blood and nervous power ; and in the compara- 
tive lassitude that follows a hearty meal, every 
adult has proof that this supply of blood and nerv- 
ous power is at the expense of the system at large. 
If the requisite nutriment is furnished by a great 
quantity of innutritions food, more work is entailed 
on the viscera than when it is furnished by a 
moderate quantity of nutritious food. This extra 
work is so much sheer loss — a loss which in chil- 
dren shows itself either in diminished energy, or in 
smaller growth, or in both. The inference is, then, 
that they should have a diet which combines, as 
much as possible, nutritiveness and digestibility. 

It is doubtless true that boys and girls may be 
brought up upon an exclusively, or almost exclu- 
sively, vegetable diet. Among the upper classes 
are to be found children to whom comparatively 
little meat is given; and who, nevertheless, grow 
and appear in good health. Animal food is scarce- 
ly tasted by the offspring of labouring people; and 
yet they reach a healthy maturity. But these 
seemingly adverse facts have by no means the 



230 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

weight commonly supposed. In the first place, it 
does not follow that those wdio in early years 
flourish on bread and potatoes, wull eventually 
reach a fine development ; and a comparison be- 
tween the agricultural labourers and the gentry^ in 
England, or between the middle and lower classes 
in France, is by no means in favour of vegetable 
feeders. In the second place, the question is not 
only a question of hitlk^ but also a question of 
quality. A soft, flabby flesh makes as good a show 
as a firm one ; but though to the careless eye, a 
child of full, flaccid tissue may appear the equal 
of one whose fibres are well toned, a trial of 
strength will prove the diflference. Obesity in adults 
is often a sign of feebleness. Men lose weight in 
training. And hence the appearance of these low- 
fed children is by no means conclusive. In the 
third place, not only size, but energy has to be con- 
sidered. Between children of the meat-eating 
classes and those of the bread-and-potato-eating 
classes, there is a marked contrast in this respect. 
Both in mental and ph^^sical vivacity the low-fed 
peasant-boy is greatly inferior to the better-fed son 
of a gentleman. 

If we compare diflPerent classes of animals, or 
difi'erent races of men, or the same animals or men 
when differently fed, we find still more distinct 
proof that the degree of energy essentially depends 
on the mdritiveness of the food. 

In a cow, subsisting on so innutritive a food as 
grass, we see that the immense quantity required 



EFFECTS OF CONCENTKATED FOOD. 237 

to be eaten necessitates an enormous digestive sys- 
tem ; that the limbs, small in comparison with tho 
bod}^, are burdened by its weight; that in carrying 
about this heavy body and digesting this excessive 
quantity of food, a great amount of force is ex- 
pended ; and that, having but little energy remain- 
ing, the creature is sluggish. Compare with the 
cow a horse — an animal of nearly allied structure, 
but adapted to a more concentrated food. Here 
we see that the body, and more especially its ab- 
dominal region, bears a much smaller ratio to the 
limbs ; that the powers are not taxed by the sup- 
port of such massive viscera, nor the digestion of 
so bulky a food ; and that, as a consequence, there 
is great locomotive energy and considerable vivaci- 
ty. If, again, we contrast the stolid inactivity of 
the graminivorous sheep with the liveliness of the 
dog, subsisting upon flesh or farinaceous food, or a 
mixture of the two, we see a difference similar in 
kind, but still greater in degree. And after walk- 
ing through tlie Zoological Gardens, and noting the 
restlessness with which the carnivorous animals 
pace up and down their cages, it needs but to re- 
member that none of the herbivorous animals 
liabitually display this superfluous energy, to see 
how clear is the relation between concentration of 
food and degree of activity. 

That these differences are not directly consequent 
upon differences of constitution, as some may argue ; 
but are directly consequent upon difterences in tlio 
food which the creatures are constituted to subsist 



{^38 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

on ; is proved by the fact, that they are observable 
between different divisions of the same species. 
Take the case of mankind. The Australians, Bush- 
men, and others of the lowest savages who live on 
roots and berries, varied by larvse of insects and 
the like meagre fare, are comparatively pnny in 
stature, have large abdomens, soft and undeveloped 
muscles, and are quite unable to cope witli Euro- 
peans, either in a struggle or in prolonged exertion. 
Count up the wild races who are well grown, 
strong and active, as the Kaffirs, !North -American 
Indians, and Patagonians, and you find them large 
consumers of flesh. The ill-fed Hindoo goes down 
before the Englishman fed on more nutritive food ; 
to whom he is as inferior in mental as in physical 
energy. And generally, we think, the history of 
the world shows that the well-fed races have been 
the energetic and dominant races. 

Still stronger, however, becomes the argument, 
when we find that the same individual animal be- 
comes capable of more or less exertion according 
as its food is more or less nutritious. This has 
been clearly demonstrated in the case of the horse. 
Though flesh may be gained by a grazing horse, 
strength is lost ; as putting him to hard work 
proves. " The consequence of turning horses out 
to grass is relaxation of the muscular system." 
" Grass is a very good preparation for a bullock for 
Smithfleld market, but a very bad one for a hunt- 
er." It was well known of old that, after passing 
the summer months in the fields, hunters required 



DIET INKLUE^fCES ENERGY. 2C9 

some months of stable-feeding before becoming able 
to follow the liouuds ; and that thej did not get in- 
to good condition nntil the beginning of the next 
spring. And the modern practice is that insisted 
on by Mr. Apperley — "Never to give a hunter 
what is called ' a summer's run at grass,' and, ex- 
cept under particular and very favourable circum- 
stances, never to turn him out at all." That is to 
say, never give him poor food : great energy and 
endurance are to be obtained only by the continu- 
ous use of very nutritive food. So true is this that, 
as proved by Mr. Apperley, prolonged high-feed- 
ing will enable a middling horse to equal, in his 
performances, a first-rate horse fed in the ordinary 
way. To which various evidences add the familiar 
fact that, when a horse is required to do double 
duty, it is the practice to give him beans — a food 
containing a larger proportion of nitrogenous, or 
flesh-making material, than his habitual oats. 

Once more, in the case of individual men tljc 
truth has been illustrated with equal, or still great- 
er, clearness. We do not refer to men in training 
for feats of strength, whose regimen, however, 
tlioroughly conforms to the doctrine. We refer to 
the experience of railway contractors and their 
labourers. It has been for years past a well-estab- 
lished fact that the English navvy, eating largely 
of flesh, is far more efiicient than a Continental 
navvy living on a less nutritive food : so much more 
efticient, that English contractors for Continental 
railways have habitually taken their labourers with 
15 



240 PEIYSICAL EDUCATION. 

tlietn. That difference of diet and not difference of 
race caused tliis superiority, lias been of late dis- 
tinctly shown. For it has turned out, that when 
the Continental navvies live in the same style as 
their English competitors, they presently rise, more 
or less nearly, to a par with them in efficiency. To 
which fact let us here add the converse one, to which 
we can give personal testimony based upon six 
months' experience of vegetarianism, that abstinence 
from meat entails diminished energy of both body 
and mind. 

Do not these various evidences distinctly en- 
dorse our argument respecting the feeding of chil- 
dren ? Do they not imply that, even supposing the 
same stature and bulk to be attained on an innutri- 
tive as on a nutritive diet, the quality of tissue is 
greatly inferior ? Do they not establish the posi- 
tion that, where energy as well as growth has to be 
maintained, it can only be done by high feeding ? 
Do they not confirm the d priori conclusion that, 
though a child of whom little is expected in the 
M'ay of bodily or mental activity, may thrive tolera> 
bly well on farinaceous substances, a child who is 
daily required, not only to form the due amount of 
new tissue, but to supply the waste consequent on 
great muscular action, and the further waste con- 
Kequent on hard exercise of brain, must live on sub- 
stances containing a larger ratio of nutritive matter ? 
And is it not an obvious corollary, that denial of 
this better food will be at the expense either of 
growth, or of bodily activity, or of mental activity ; 



ciiildeen's diet should be varied. 241 

as constitution and circumstances may determine ? 
VV^e believe no logical intellect Mdll question it. To 
think otherwise is to entertain in a disguised form 
the old fallacy of the perpetual-motion schemers — 
that it is possible to get power out of nothing. 

Before leaving the question of food, a few words 
must be said on another requisite — variety. In this 
respect the dietary of the young is very faulty. If 
not, like our soldiers, condemned to " twenty years 
of boiled beef," our children have mostly to bear a 
monotony which, though less extreme and less last- 
ing, is quite as clearly at variance with the laws of 
health. At dinner, it is true, they usually have food 
that is more or less mixed, and that is changed day 
by day. But week after week, month after month, 
year after year, comes the same breakfast of bread- 
and-milk, or, it may be, oatmeal porridge. And 
with like persistence the day is closed, perhaps with 
a second edition of the bread-and-milk, perhaps 
with tea and bread-and-butter. 

This practice is opposed to the dictates of phj^si- 
olog^^ The satiety produced by an often -repeated 
dish, and the gratification caused by one long a 
sti'anger to the palate, are not meaningless, as many 
carelessly assume ; but they are the incentives to a 
wholesome diversity of diet, It is a fact, establish- 
ed by numerous experiments, that there is scarcely 
any one food, however good, which supplies in due 
proportions or right forms all the elements required 
for carrying on the vital processes in a normal man- 
ner: from whence it is to be inferred that frequent 



242 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

change of food is desirable to balance tlie supply of 
all the elements. It is a further fact, well known 
to physiologists, that the enjoyment given by a 
much-liked food is a nervous stimulus, which, by 
increasing the action of the heart and so propelling 
the blood with increased vigour, aids in the sub- 
sequent digestion. And these truths are in har- 
mony with the maxims of modern cattle-feeding, 
which dictate a rotation of diet. 

I^ot only, however, is periodic change of food 
very desirable ; but, for the same reasons, it is very 
desirable that a mixture of food should be taken at 
each meal. The better balance of ingredients, and 
the greater nervous stimulation, are advantages 
which hold here as before. If facts are asked for, 
we may name as one, the comparative case with 
which the stomach disposes of a French dinner, 
enormous in quantity but extremely varied in ma- 
terial. Few will contend that an equal weight of 
one kind of food, however well cooked, could be 
digested with as mucli facility. If any desire 
further facts, they may find them in every modern 
l)Ook on the management of animals. Animals 
thrive best when each meal is made up of several 
things. And indeed, among men of science the truth 
has been long ago established. The experiments of 
(loss and Stark " afford the most decisive proof of 
the advantage, or rather the necessity, of a mixture of 
substances, in order to produce the compound which 
is the best adapted for the action of the stomach." * 
* Cyclopcedia of Anatomy and Physiology. 



CAUTION IN CHANGING DIET. 243 

Should any object, as probably many will, tliat 
a rotating dietary for children, and one which also 
requires a mixture of food at each meal, W'Ould en- 
tail too much trouble ; we reply, that no trouble is 
tlioiight too great which conduces to the mental 
development of children, and that for their future 
welfare, good bodily development is equally impor- 
tant. Moreover, it seems alike sad and strange that 
a trouble which is cheerfully taken in the fattening 
of pigs, should be thought too great in the rearing 
of children. 

One more paragraph, witli the view of warning 
those who may propose to adopt the regimen indi- 
cated. The change must not be made suddenly ; 
for continued low-feeding so enfeebles tlie system, 
as to disable it from at once dealing with a higli 
diet. Deficient nutrition is itself a cause of dyspep- 
sia. This is true even of animals. " When calves 
are fed with skimmed milk, or wdiey, or other poor 
food, they are liable to indigestion." * Hence, 
therefore, where the energies are low, the transition, 
to a generous diet must be gradual : each incre- 
ment of strength gained, justifying a further increase 
of nutriment. Further, it should always be borne 
in mind that the concentration of nutriment may 
be carried too far. A bulk sufficient to fill the 
stomach is one requisite of a proper meal ; and this 
requisite negatives a diet deficient in those waste 
matters which give adequate mass. Though the 
size of the digestive organs is less in the well-fed 

* Morton's CyclopcBdia of Agriculture. 



244- PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

civilized races than in the ill-fed savage ones ; and, 
though their size may eventually diminish stiil 
further; yet, for the time being, the bulk of the in- 
gesta must be determined by the existing capacity. 
But, paying due regard to these two qualifications 
our conclusions are — that the food of children 
should be highly nutritive ; that it should be varied 
at each meal and at successive meals ; and that it 
should be abundant. 

"With clothing as with food, the established ten- 
dency is towards an improper scantiness. Here, 
too, asceticism peeps out. There is a current theory, 
vaguely entertained, if not put into a definite 
formula, that the sensations are to be disregard- 
ed. They do not exist for our guidance, but to 
mislead us, seems to be the prevalent belief reduced 
to its naked form. It is a grave error : we are 
much more beneficently constituted. It is not 
obedience to the sensations, but disobedience to 
them, which is the habitual cause of bodily evils- 
It is not the eating when hungry, but the eating in 
the absence of appetite, which is bad. It is not the 
drinking when thirsty, but the continuing to drink 
when thirst has ceased, that is the vice. Harm re- 
sults not from breathing that fresh air M'hich eveiy 
healthy person enjoys; but from continuing to 
breathe foul air, spite of the protest of the lungs. 
Harm results not from taking that active exercise 
which, as every child shows us, nature strongly 
prompts ; but from a persistent disregard of nature's 



OBEDIENCE TO THE PHYSICAL CONSCIENCE. 245 

promptings. Not that mental activity wliich is 
spontaneous and enjoyable does the mischief; but 
that which is persevered in after a hot or acliing 
head commands desistance. Not that bodily exer- 
tion which is pleasant or indifferent, does injury ; 
but that which is continued when exhaustion forbids. 
It is true that, in those who have long led unhealtliy 
lives, the sensations are not trustworthy guides. 
People who have for years been almost constant- 
ly in-doors, who have exercised their brains very 
much, and tlieir bodies scarcely at all, who in eating 
liave obeyed their clocks without consulting their 
stomachs, may very likely be misled by tlieir 
vitiated feelings. But tlieir abnormal state is itself 
the result of transgressing tlieir feelings. Had they 
from childhood up never disobeyed what we may 
term the physical conscience, it would not have been 
seared, but would have remained a faithful monitor. 
Among the sensations serving for our guidance 
are those of heat and cold ; and a clothing for chil- 
dren which does not carefully consult these sensa- 
tions is to be condemned. The common notion 
about "hardening" is a grievous delusion. Chil- 
dren are not unfrequently " hardened " out of the 
world ; and those who survive, permanently suffer 
either in growth or constitution. " Their delicate 
appearance furnishes ample indication of the mis- 
chief thus produced, and their frequent attacks of 
illness might prove a warning even to unreflecting 
parents," says Dr. Combe. The reasoning on which 
this hardening theory rests is extremely superficial. 



246 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Wealthy parents, seeing little peasant boys and 
girls playing about in the open air only half-clothed, 
and joining with this fact the general healthiness of 
labouring people, draw the unwarrantable conclu- 
sion that the healthiness is the result of the expo= 
sure, and resolve to keej) their own offspring scan- 
tily covered ! It is forgotten that these urchins 
who gambol upon village-greens are in many re- 
spects favourably circumstanced — that their days 
are spent in almost perpetual play ; that they are 
always breathing fresh air; and that their sj'stems 
are not disturbed by over-taxed brains. For anght 
that appears to the contrary, their good health may 
be maintained, not in consequence of, but in spite 
of, their deficient clothing. This alternative con- 
clusion we believe to be the true one ; and that an 
inevitable detriment results from the needless loss 
of animal heat to which they are subject. 

For when, the constitution being sound enough 
to bear it, exposure does produce hardness, it does 
so at the expense of growth. This truth is display- 
ed alike in animals and in man. The Shetland 
pony bears greater inclemencies than the horses of 
the south, but is dwarfed. Highland sheep and 
cattle, living in a colder climate, are stunted in 
comparison with English breeds. In both the arc- 
tic and antarctic regions the human race falls 
much below its ordinary height: the Laplander 
and Esquimaux are very short ; and the Terra del 
Fuegians, who go naked in a cold latitude, are de- 
Bcribed by Darwin as so stunted and hideous, that 



PROIEC IION FEOM COLD, 217 

*' one can hardly make one's self believe they are 
fellow-creatures." 

Science clearly explains this dwarfishness pro- 
duced by great abstraction of heat : showing that, 
food and other things being equal, it unavoidably 
results. For, as before pointed out, to make up for 
that cooling by radiation which the body is con- 
stantly undergoing, there must be a constant oxida- 
tion of certain matters which form part of the food. 
And in proportion as the thermal loss is great, must 
the quantity of these matters required for oxidation 
be great. But the power of the digestive organs is 
limited. Hence it follows, that when they have to 
prepare a large quantity of this material needful 
for maintaining the temperature, they can prepare 
but a small quantity of the material which goes to 
build up the frame. Excessive expenditure for fuel 
entails diminished means for other purposes : where- 
fore there necessarily results a body small in size, 
or inferior in texture, or both. 

Hence the great importance of clothing. As 
Liebig saj's : — " Our clothing is, in reference to the 
temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for 
a certain amount of food." By diminishing the 
loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel need- 
ful for maintaining the heat ; and when the stom- 
ach has less to do in preparing fuel, it can do more 
in preparing other materials. This deduction is 
entirely confirmed by the experience of those who 
manage animals. Cold can be borne by animals 
only at an expense of fat, or muscle, or growth, as 



248 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the case may be. " If fattening cattle are exposed 
to a low temperature, either their progress must be 
retarded, or a great additional expenditure of food 
incurred." * Mr. Apperley insists strongly that, to 
bring hunters into good condition, it is necessary 
that the stable should be kept warm. And among 
those who rear racers, it is an established doctrine 
that exposure is to be avoided. 

The scientific truth thus illustrated by ethnolo- 
gy, and recognised by agriculturists and sportsmen, 
applies with double force to children. In propor- 
tion to their smallness and the rapidity of their 
growth is the injury from cold great. In France, 
new-born infants often die in winter from being 
carried to the office of the maire for registration. 
" M. Quetelet has pointed out, that in Belgium two 
infants die in Januaiy for one that dies in July." 
And in Russia the infant mortality is something 
enormous. Even when near maturity, the unde- 
veloped frame is comparatively unable to bear ex- 
posure : as witness the quickness with which 
ji-oung soldiers succumb in a trying campaign. 
The rationale is obvious. We have already ad- 
verted to the fact that, in consequence of the vary- 
ing relation between surface and bulk, a child loses 
a relatively larger amount of heat than an adult ; 
and here we must point out that the disadvantage 
under which the child thus labours is very great„ 
Lehmann says : — " If the carbonic acid excreted by 
children or young animals is calculated for an 

* Morton's Ct/clopadia of Agriculture. 



EVILS INFLICTED BY SCANTY CLOTHING. 249 

equal bodily weight, it results tliat children }3ro- 
duce nearly twice as much acid as adults." ISTow 
the quantity of carbonic acid given off varies with 
tolerable accuracy as the quantity of heat produced. 
And tlius we see that in children the system, even 
when not placed at a disadvantage, is called upon 
to provide nearly double the proportion of material 
for generating heat. 

See, then, the extreme folly of clothing the 
young scantily. AYhat father, full-grown though 
he is, losing heat less rapidly as he does, and hav- 
ing no physiological necessity but to supply the 
waste of each day — what father, we ask, would 
think it salutary to go about with bare legs, bare 
arms, and bare neck ? Yet this tax upon the sys- 
tern, from which he would shrink, he inflicts upon 
his little ones, who are so much less able to bear 
it ! or, if he does not inflict it, sees it inflicted with 
out protest. Let him remember that every ounce 
of nutriment needlessly expended for the mainte- 
nance of temperature, is so much deducted from 
the nutriment going to build up the frame and 
maintain the energies ; and that even when colds, 
congestions, or other consequent disorders are 
escaped, diminished growth or less perfect struc- 
ture is inevitable. 

" The rule is, therefore, not to dress in an inva- 
riable \vay in all cases, but to put on clothing in 
kind and quantity sufficient ^V^ tJie individual case 
to protect the hody effectually from an abiding sensor 
tion of cold^ however slight^ This rule, the impoi*' 



250 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

tance of which Dr. Combe indicates bj the italics, 
is one in which men of science and practitioners 
agree. We have met with none competent to form 
a judgment on the matter, who do not strongly con- 
demn the exposure of children's limbs. If there is 
one point above others in which " pestilent custom " 
shoukl be ignored, it is this. 

Lamentable, indeed, is it to see mothers serious- 
ly damaging the constitutions of their children out 
of compliance with an irrational fashion. It is bad 
enough that they should themselves conform to 
every folly which our Gallic neighbours j)lease to 
initiate ; but that they sliould clothe their children 
in any mountebank dress which Le petit Courrier 
des Dames indicates, regardless of its insufficiency 
and uniitness, is monstrous. Discomfort, more or 
less great, is inflicted ; frequent disorders are en- 
tailed ; growth is checked or stamina undermined ; 
premature death not uncommonly caused ; and all 
because it is thought needful to make frocks of a 
size and material dictated by French caprice. Not 
only is it that for the sake of conformity, mothers 
thus punish and injure their little ones by scanti- 
ness of covering; but it is that from an allied 
motive they impose a style of dress which forbids 
healthful activity. To please the eye, colours and 
fabrics are chosen totally untit to bear that rough 
usage which unrestrained play involves; and then 
to prevent damage the unrestrained play is inter- 
dicted. "Get up this moment : you will soil your 
clean frock," is the mandate issued to some urchin 



MATERNAL FOLLY IN DRESSING CHILDREN. 251 

creeping about on the floor. " Come back : jou 
Avill dirty 3^our stockings," calls out the governess 
to one of her charges, who has left the footpath to 
scramble np a bank. Thus is the evil doubled. 
That they may come up to their mamma's stand- 
ard of prettiness, and be admired by her visitors, 
children must have habiliments deficient in quanti- 
ty and unfit in texture ; and tliat these easily- 
damaged habilin}ents may be kept clean and unin- 
jured, the restless activity, so natural and needful 
for the young, is more or less restrained. The ex- 
ercise which becomes doubly requisite when the 
clothing is insufficient, is cut short, lest it should 
deface the clothing. Would that the terrible cruel- 
ty of this system could be seen by those who main- 
tain it. We do not hesitate to say that, through 
enfeebled health, defective energies, and conse- 
quent non-success in life, thousands are annually 
doomed to unhappiness by this unscrupulous regard 
for appearances : even when they are not, by early 
death, literally sacrificed to the Moloch of maternal 
vanity. We are reluctant to counsel strong meas- 
ures, but really the evils are so great as to justif}', 
or even to demand, a peremptory interference on 
the part of fathers. 

Our conclusions are, then — that, while the cloth- 
ing of children should never be in such excess as 
to create oppressive w^armth, it should always be 
sufficient to prevent any general feeling of cold ; * 

* It is needful to remark that children whose legs and arms 
have been from the beginning habitually without covering, cease to 



Z.jJ niYSICAL EDUCATION. 

tiiat, instead of the flimsy cotton, linen, or mixed 
fabrics commonly used, it should be made of some 
good non-conductor, snch as coarse woollen cloth ; 
that it should be so strong as to receive little dam- 
age from the hard wear and tear which childish 
sports will give it ; and that its colours should be 
such as will not soon suffer from use and exposure. 

To the importance of bodily exercise most peo- 
ple are in some degree awake. Perhaps less needs 
saying on this requisite of physical education than 
on most others: at any rate, in so far as boys are 
concerned. Public schools and private schools 
alike furnish tolerably adequate playgrounds ; and 
there is usually a fair share of time for out-of-door 
games, and a recognition of them as needful. In 
this, if in no other direction, it seems admitted that 
the natural promptings of boyish instinct may ad- 
vantageously be followed ; and, indeed, in the 
modern practice of breaking the prolonged morning 
and afternoon's lessons by a few minutes' open-air 
recreation, we see an inci'easing tendency to con- 
form school regulations to the bodily sensations of 
the pupils. Here, then, little needs to be said in 
the way of expostulation or suggestion. 

be conscious that the exposed surfaces are cold ; just as by use we 
have all ceased to be conscious that our faces are cold, even when 
out of doors. But though in such children the sensations no longer 
protest, it does not follow that the S3'steni escapes injury; anymore 
than it follows that the Fuegian is undamaged by exposure, because 
he bears with indifference the melting of the falling snow on his 
naked body. 



GIRLS HAVE NOT ENOUGH EXERCISE. 253 

But we have been obliged to qualify this ad- 
mission by inserting the clause " in so far as boys 
are concerned." Unfortunately, the fact is quite 
otherwise in the case of girls. It chances, some- 
wliat strangely, that we have daily opportunity of 
drawing a comparison. We have both a boy's and 
a girl's school within view ; and the contrast be- 
tween them is remarkable. In the one case, nearly 
the whole of a large garden is turned into an open, 
gravelled space, affording ample scope for games, 
and supplied w'ith poles and horizontal bars for 
gymnastic exercises. Every day before breakfast, 
again towards eleven o'clock, again at mid-day, 
again in the afternoon, and once more after school 
is over, the neighbourhood is awakened by a cliorus 
of shouts and laughter as the boys rush out to play ; 
and for as long as they remain, both eyes and ears 
give proof that they are absorbed in that enjoyable 
activity which makes the pulse bound and ensures 
the healthful activity of every organ. How unlike 
is the picture offered by the "Establishment for 
Young Ladies"! Until the fact was pointed out, 
we actually did not know that we had a girl's 
school as close to us as the school for boys. The 
garden, equally large with the other, affords no 
sign wliatever of any provision for juvenile recrea- 
tion ; but is entirely laid out with prim grassplots, 
gravel-walks, shrubs, and flow^ers, after tlie usual 
suburban style. During five months we have not 
once had our attention drawn to the premises by a 
shout or a laugh. Occasionally girls may be ob' 



254 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

served sauntering along the patlis with their lesson- 
books in their hands, or else walking arm-in-arm. 
Once, indeed, we saw one chase another round the 
garden ; but, with this exception, nothing like 
vigorous exertion has been visible. 

Why this astonishing diflerence ? Is it that the 
constitution of a girl differs so entirely from that 
of a boy as not to need these active exercises? Is 
it that a girl has none of the promptings to vocifer- 
ous play by which boys are impelled ? Or is it 
that, while in boys these j^romptings are to be re- 
garded as securing that bodily activity w^ithout 
which there cannot be adequate development, to 
their sisters nature has given them for no purpose 
whatever — unless it be for the vexation of school- 
mistresses ? Perhaps, however, we mistake the 
aim of those who train the gentler sex. "VVe have 
a vague suspicion that to produce a robust p/tysiqtce 
is thought undesirable ; that rude health and 
abundant vigour are considered somewhat plebe- 
ian ; that a certain delicacy, a strength not compe- 
tent to more than a mile or two's walk, an appetite 
fastidious and easily satisfied, joined with that ti- 
midity which commonly accompanies feebleness, 
are held more lady-like. We do not expect that 
any would distinctly avow this ; but w^e fancy the 
governess-mind is haunted by an ideal young lad}'' 
bearing not a little resemblance to this type. If 
so, it must be admitted that the established system 
is admirably calculated to realize this ideal. But 
to suppose that such is the ideal of the opposite 



THE HORR-JR OF THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS, 255 

sex is a profound mistake. That men are not com" 
monlj drawn towards masculine women, is doubt- 
less true. That such relative weakness as calls for 
the protection of superior strength is an element 
of attraction, we quite admit. Bat the diflerence 
to which the feelings thus respond is the natural, 
pre-established difference, which will assert itself 
without artificial appliances. And when, by artifi- 
cial appliances, the degree of this difference is in- 
creased, it becomes an element of repulsion rather 
than attraction. 

" Then girls should be allowed to run wild — to 
become as rude as boys, and grow up into romps 
and hoydens ! " exclaims some defender of the pro- 
prieties. This, we presume, is the ever-present 
dread of schoolmistresses. It appears, on inquiry, 
that at " Establishments for Young Ladies " noisy 
play like that daily indulged in by boys, is a punish- 
able offence ; and it is to be inferred that this noisy 
play is forbidden, lest unlady-like habits should 
be formed. The fear is quite groundless, however* 
For if the sportive activity allowed to boys does 
not prevent tliem from growing up into gentlemen ; 
why should a like sportive activity allowed to 
girls prevent them from growing up into ladies ? 
Rough as may have been their accustomed play- 
ground frolics, youths who have left school do not 
indulge in leapfrog in the street, or marbles in the 
drawing-room. Abandoning their jackets, they 
abandon at the same time boyish games ; and dis- 
play an anxiety — often a ludicrous anxiety — to 



256 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

avoid whatever is not manly. If now, on arriving 
at the due age, tliis feeling of masculine dignity 
puts so efhcient a restraint on the romping sports 
of boyhood, will not the feeling of feminine mod- 
esty, gradually strengthening as maturity is ap- 
proached, put an efficient restraint on the like 
sports of girlhood ? Have not women even a 
greater regard for appearances than men ? and will 
there not consequently arise in them even a stronger 
check to whatever is rough or boisterous ? How 
absurd is the supposition that the womanly in- 
stincts would not assert themselves but for the rig- 
orous discipline of schoolmistresses ! 

In this, as in other cases, to remedy the evils of 
one artificiality, another artificiality has been intro- 
duced. The natural spontaneous exercise having 
been forbidden, and the bad consequences of no 
exercise having become conspicuous, there has 
been adopted a system of factitious exercise — gym- 
nastics. That this is better than nothing we ad- 
mit,; but that it is an adequate substitute for play 
we deny. The defects are both positive and nega- 
tive. In the first place, these formal, muscular 
motions, necessarily much less varied than those 
accompanying juvenile sports, do not secure so 
equable a distribution of action to all parts of the 
body ; whence it results that the exertion, falling 
on special parts, produces fatigue sooner than it 
would else have done : add to which, that, if con- 
stantly repeated, this exertion of special parts leads 
to a disproportionate development. Again, the 



TLAY BETTER THAN GYMNASTICS. 257 

quantity of exercise thus taken will be deficient, 
not only in consequence of uneven distribution, but 
it will be further deficient in consequence of lack 
of interest. Even when not made repulsive, as 
they sometimes are, by assuming the shape of ap- 
pointed lessons, these monotonous movements are 
sure to become wearisome, from the absence of 
amusement. Competition, it is true, serves as a 
stimulus ; but it is not a lasting stimulus, like that 
enjoyment which accompanies varied play. Not 
only, however, are gymnastics inferior in respect 
of the quantity of muscular exertion which they 
secure ; they are still more inferior in respect of 
the quality. This comparative want of enjoyment 
to which we have just referred as a cause of early 
desistance from artificial exercises, is also a cause 
of inferiority in the effects they produce on the 
system. The common assumption that so long as 
the amount of bodily action is the same, it matters 
not whether it be pleasurable or otherwise, is a 
grave mistake. An agreeable mental excitement 
has a highly invigorating influence. See the ef- 
fect produced upon an invalid by good news, or by 
the visit of an old friend. Mark how careful med- 
ical men are to recommend lively society to debili- 
tated patients. Remember how beneficial to the 
health is the gratification produced by change of 
scene. The truth is that happiness is the most 
powerful of tonics. By accelerating the circulation 
of the blood, it facilitates the performance of every 
function ; and so tends alike to increase liealth 



258 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

"wlien it exists, and to restore it when it has been 
lost. Hence the essential superiority of play to 
gymnastics. The extreme interest felt by children 
in their games, and the riotous glee with which 
they carry on their rougher frolics, are of as much 
importance as the accompanying exertion. And 
as not supplying these mental stimuli, gymnastics 
must be fundamentally defective. 

Granting then, as we do, that formal exercises 
of the limbs are better than nothing — granting, 
further, that they may be used with advantage as 
supplementary aids ; we yet contend that such 
formal exercises can never supply the place of the 
exercises prompted b}^ nature. For girls, as well 
as boys, the sportive activities to which the in- 
stincts impel, are essential to bodily welfare. 
Whoever ibrbids them, forbids the divinely-ap- 
pointed means to physical development. 

A topic still remains — one perhaps more ur- 
gently demanding consideration than any of the 
foregoing. It is asserted by not a few, that among 
the educated classes the younger adults and those 
who are verging upon maturity are, on the avei- 
age, neither so well grown nor so strong as thei)' 
seniors. When first we heard this assertion, we 
were inclined to disregard it as one of the many 
manifestations of the old tendency to exalt the past 
at the expense of the present. Calling to mind the 
facts that, as measured by ancient armour, modern 
men are proved to be larger than ancient men, and 



PHYSICAL DEGENERACY. 259 

tliat. the tables of mortality show no diminution, 
but x'ather an increase in the duration of life, we 
paid little attention to what seemed a groundless 
belief. Detailed observation, however, has greatly 
shaken our opinion. Omitting from the compari- 
son the labouring classes, w-e have noticed a major- 
ity of cases in which the cliildren do not reach the 
stature of their parents ; and, in massiveness, mak- 
ing due allowance for difierence of age, there seems 
a like inferiority. In health, the contrast appears 
still greater. MeTi of past generations, living riot- 
ously as they did, could bear much more than men 
of the present generation, who live soberly, can 
bear. Though they drank hard, kept irregular 
hours, were regardless of fresh air, and thought lit- 
tle of cleanliness, our recent ancestors were capa- 
ble of prolonged application without injury, even 
to a ripe old age : witness the annals of the bench 
and the bar. Yet we who think much about our 
bodily welfare ; who eat with moderation, and do 
not drink to excess ; who attend to ventilation, and 
use frequent ablutions ; who make annual excur- 
sions, and have the benefit of greater medical 
knowledge ; — we are continually breaking down 
under our work. Paying considerable attention to 
the laws of health, we seem to be weaker than 
our grandfathers who, in many respects, defied the 
laws of health. And, judging from the appear- 
ance and frequent ailments of the rising generation, 
they are likely to be even less robust than our- 
selves. 



260 PHYSICAL EDUCMION. 

What is the meaning of this ? Is it that past 
over-feeding, alike of adults and juveniles, was less 
injurious than the under-feeding to which we have 
adverted as now so general? Is it that the defi- 
cient clothing which this delusive liardening theory 
has encouraged, is to blame ? Is it that the greater 
or less discouragement of juvenile sports, in defer- 
ence to a false refinement, is the cause ? From our 
reasonings it may be inferred that each of these 
has probably had a share in producing the evil. 
But there has been yet another detrimental in- 
fluence at work, perhaps more potent than any of 
the others : we mean — excess of mental applica- 
tion. 

On old and young, the pressure of modern life 
puts a still-increasing strain. In all businesses and 
professions, intenser competition taxes the energies 
and abilities of every adult ; and, with the view of 
better fitting the young to hold their place under 
this intenser competition, they are subject to a more 
severe discipline than heretofore. The damage is 
thus doubled. Fathers, who find not only that they 
are run hard by their multiplying competitors, but 
that, while labouring under this disadvantage, they 
have to maintain a more expensive style of living, 
are all the year round obliged to work early and 
late, taking little exercise and getting but short 
holidays. The constitutions, shaken by this long 
continued over-application, they bequeath to their 
children. And then these comparatively feeble 
children, predisposed as they are to break down 



MISCHIEFS OF OVEK- APPLICATION. 2G1 

even under an ordinary strain upon their energies, 
are required to go through a curriculum much 
more extended than that prescribed for the unen- 
feebled children of past generations. 

That disastrous consequences must result from 
this cumulaiive transgression might be predicted 
with certainty ; and that they do result, every ob- 
servant person knows. Go where you will, and 
before long there come under 3'our notice cases of 
children, or youths, of either sex, more or less in- 
jured by undue study. Here, to recover from a 
state of debility thus produced, a year's rustica- 
tion has been found necessary. There you find a 
chronic congestion of the brain, that has already 
lasted many months, and threatens to last much 
longer. Now you hear of a fever that resulted from 
the over-excitement in some way brought on at 
school. And, again, the instance is that of a youth 
who has already had once to desist from his studies, 
and who, since he has returned to them, is frequent- 
ly taken out of his class in a fainting fit. We state 
facts — facts that have not been sought for, but have 
been thrust upon our observation during the last 
two years : and that, too, within a very limited 
range. Nor have we by any means exhausted the 
list. Qnite recently we had the opportunity of 
marking how the evil becomes hereditary : the case 
being that of a lady of robust parentage, whose sys- 
tem was so injured by the regime of a Scotch board- 
ing-school, where she was under-fed and over-work- 



'^Q2 rnvsioAL education, 

ed, that she invariably suffers from vertigo on rising 
in the morning; and whose children, inheriting this 
enfeebled brain,. are several of them unable to bear 
even a moderate amount of study without headache 
or giddiness. At the present time we have daily 
under our eyes, a young lady whose system has 
been damaged for life by the college-course through 
which she has passed. Taxed as she was to such 
an extent that she had no energy left for exercise, 
she is, now that she has finished her education, a 
constant complainant. Appetite small and very 
capricious, mostly refusing meat ; extremities per- 
petually cold, even when the weather is warm ; a 
feebleness which forbids anything but the slowest 
walking, and that only for a short time; palpitation 
on going up stairs ; greatly impaired vision — these, 
joined with checked growth and lax tissue, are 
among the results entailed. And to her case we 
may add that of her friend and fellow-student ; who 
is similarly weak ; who is liable to faint even under 
the excitement of a quiet party of friends ; and who 
has at length been obliged by her medical attend- 
ant to desist from study entirely. 

If injuries so conspicuous are thus frequent, how 
very general must be the smaller and inconspicu- 
ous injuries. To one case where positive illness is 
directly traceable to over-application, there are 
probably at least half-a-dozen eases where the evil 
is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating — cases 
where there is frequent derangement of the func- 



MISCHIEFS OF OVER-APPLICATION. 263 

tlons, attributed to this or that special cause, or to 
constitutional delicacy ; cases where there is retar- 
dation and premature arrest of bodilj growth ; 
cases where a latent tendency to consumption is 
brought out and established ; cases where a predis- 
position is given to that now common cerebral dis- 
order brought on by the hard work of adult life. 
How commonly constitutions are thus undermined, 
will be clear to all who, after noting the frequent 
ailments of hard-worked professional and mercantile 
men, will reflect on the disastrous effects which 
undue application must produce upon the unde- 
veloped systems of the young. The young are com- 
petent to bear neither as much hardship, nor as 
much physical exertion, nor as much mental exer- 
tion, as the full grown. Judge, then, if the full 
grown so manifestly suffer from the excessive mental 
exertion required of them, how great must be the 
damage which a mental exertion, often equally ex- 
cessive, inflicts upon the young ! 

Indeed, when we examine the merciless school- 
drill to which many children are subjected, the 
wonder is, not that it does great injury, but that it 
can be borne at all. Take the instance given by 
Sir John Forbes from personal knowledge ; and 
which he asserts, after much inquiry, to be an 
average sample of the middle-class girl's-school sys- 
tem throughout England. Omitting the detailed 
divisions of time, we quote the summary of tlio 
twenty-four hours. 



2tJi PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

In bed hours (the younger 10) 

In school, at their studies and 

tasks 9 " 

In school, or in the house, the 

older at optional studies or 

the work, younger at play . . 3^ " (the younger 2A) 

At meals 1^ " 

Exercise in the open air, in the 

shape of a formal walk, often 

with lesson books in hand, and 

even this only when the wea- 
ther is fine at the appointed 

time 1 " 

24 

And what are the results of this " astounding 
regimen," as Sir John Forbes terras it? Of course 
feebleness, pallor, want of spirits, general ill-health. 
But he describes something more. This utter dis- 
regard of physical welfare, out of extreme anxiety 
to cultivate the mind — this prolonged exercise of 
the brain and deficient exercise of the limbs, — he 
found to be habitually followed, not only by dis- 
ordered functions but by malformation. He says : 
— " We lately visited, in a large town, a boarding- 
school containing forty girls ; and we learnt, on 
close and accurate inquiry, that there was not one 
of the girls who had been at the school two years 
(and the majority had been as long) that was not 
more or less croolied / " * 

It may be that since 1833, when this was written, 
some improvement has taken place. We hope it 

* Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, vol. i. pp. 69'7, 698. 



TIME DEVOTED TO STUDY. 265 

has. But that the system is still coiuiiioii — nay, 
that it is ill some cases carried even to a greater 
extreme than ever ; we can personally testify. We 
recently went over a training college for young 
men : one of those instituted of late years for the 
purpose of supplying schools with well-disciplined 
teachers. Here, under official supervision, where 
something better than the judgment of private 
schoolmistresses might have been looked for, we 
found the daily routine to be as follows : — 

At 6 o'clock the students are called, 
" 7 to 8 studies, 

" 8 to 9 scripture reading, prayers, and breakfast, 
" 9 to 12 studies, 
'' 12 to 1^ leisure, nominally devoted to walking or other 

exercise, but often s{)cnt in study, 
'• 1^ to 2 dinner, the meal commonly occupying twenty 

minutes, 
" 2 to 5 studies, 
" 5 to G tea and relaxation, 
" 6 to 8i studies, 
" 8i to 9i private studies in preparing lessons for the next 

" 10 to bed. 

Thus, out of the twenty-four hours, eight are de- 
voted to sleep ; four and a quarter are occupied in 
dressing, prayers, meals, and the brief periods of 
rest accompanying them ; ten and a half are given 
to study ; and one and a quarter to exercise, which 
is optional and often avoided. Not onl}^, however, 
is it that the ten and a half hours of recognised 
study are frequently increased to eleven and a half 



266 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

by devoting to books the time set aj)artfor exercise ; 
bat some of the students who are not quick in learn- 
ing, get up at four o'clock in the morning to prepare 
their lessons ; and are actually encouraged by their 
teachers to do this ! The course to be passed 
through in a given time is so extensive ; the teach- 
ers, whose credit is at stake in getting their pupils 
well through the examinations, are so urgent; and 
the difficulty of satisfying the requirements is so 
great ; that pupils are not uncommonly induced to 
spend twelve and thirteen hours a day in mental 
labour ! 

It needs no prophet to see that the bodily injury 
iniiicted must be great. As we were told by one 
01 the inmates, those who arrive with fresh com- 
plexions quickly become blanched. Illness is fre- 
quent : there are always some on the sick-list. Fail- 
ure of appetite and indigestion are very common. Di- 
arrhoea is a prevalent disorder : not uncommonly a 
third of the whole number of students suffering 
under it at the same time. Headache is generally 
complained of; and by some is borne almost daily 
for months. While a certain percentage break 
down entirely and go away. 

That this should be the regimen of what is in 
some sort a model institution, established and super- 
intended by the embodied enlightenment of the 
age, is a startling fact. Tliat the severe examina- 
tions, joined with the short period assigned for prep- 
aration, sliould practically compel recourse to a 
system which inevitably undermines the liealth of 



DANGERS OF OVER-EDUCATION. 207 

all who pass throngh it, is proof, if not of cruelty, 
then of woful ignorance. 

Doubtless the case is in a great degree excep- 
tional — perhaps to be paralleled only in other insti- 
tutions of the same class. But that cases so extreme 
should exist at all, indicates pretty clearly how 
great is the extent to which the minds of the rising 
generation are overtasked. Expressing as they do 
the ideas of the educated community, these training 
colleges, even in the absence of all other evidence, 
W'Ould conclusively imply a prevailing tendency to 
an unduly ui'gent system of culture. 

It seems strange that there should be so little 
consciousness of the dangers of over-education dur- 
ing youth, when there is so general a consciousness 
of the dangers of over-education during childhood. 
Most parents are more or less aware of the evil 
consequences that follow infant precocity. In every 
society may be heard reprobation of those who too 
early stimulate the minds of their little ones. And 
the dread of this early stimulation is great in pro- 
portion as there is adequate knowledge of the 
effects : witness the implied opinion of one of our 
most distinguished j^rofessors of physiology, who 
told us that he did not intend his little boy to learn 
any lessons until he was eight years old. But 
while to all it is a familiar truth that a forced 
development of intelligence in childhood entails 
(Usastrons results — either physical feebleness, or 
ultimate stupidity, or early death — it appears not 
to be perceived that throughout youth the same 



268 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

truth holds. Yet it is certain that it must do so. 
There is a given order in which, and a given rate 
at which, the faculties unfold. If the course of 
education conforms itself to that order and rate, 
well. If not — if the higher faculties are early taxed 
by presenting an order of knowledge more complex 
and abstract than can be readily assimilated ; or if, 
by excess of culture, the intellect in general is 
develoj^ed to a degree beyond that which is natural 
to the age ; the abnormal result so produced will 
inevitably be accompanied by some equivalent, or 
more than equivalent, evil. 

For Nature is a strict accountant; and if you 
demand of her in one direction more than she is 
prepared to lay out, she balances the account by 
making a deduction elsewhere. If you will let her 
follow her own course, taking care to supply, in 
right quantities and kinds, the raw materials of 
bodil}^ and mental growth required at each age, she 
will eventually produce an individual more or less 
evenly developed. If, however, you insist on pre- 
mature or undue growth of any one part, she will, 
with more or less protest, concede the point ; but 
that she may do your extra work, she must leave 
some of her more important work undone. Let it 
never be forgotten that the amount of vital energy 
which the body at any moment possesses is limited ; 
and that, being limited, it is impossible to get from 
it more than a fixed quantity of I'esults. In a child 
or youth the demands upon this vital energy are 
various and urgent. As before pointed out, the 



VARIOUS DRAUGHTS UPON THE ENERGY. 269 

vaste consequent on the day's bodily exercise has 
to be repaired ; the wear of brain entailed by the 
day's study has to be made good ; a certain addi- 
tional growth of body has to be provided for ; and 
also a certain additional growth of brain : add to 
which the amount of energy absorbed in the diges= 
tion of the large quantity of food required for meet- 
ing these many demands. Now, that to divert an 
excess of energy into any one of these channels ip" 
to abstract it from the others, is not only manifest 
d priori / but may be shown a imsteriori from the 
experience of every one. Every one knows, for in- 
stance, that the digestion of a heavy meal makes 
such a demand on the system as to produce lassi- 
tude of mind and body, ending not unt'requently in 
sleep. Every one knows, too, that excess of bodily 
exercise diminishes the power of thought — that the 
temporary prostration following any sudden exer- 
tion, or the fatigue produced by a thirty miles' 
walk, is accompanied by a disinclination to mental 
effort ; that, after a month's pedestrian tour, the 
mental inertia is such that some days are required 
to overcome it ; and that in peasants who spend their 
lives in muscular labour the activity of mind is very 
small. Again, it is a truth familiar to all that dur- 
ing those fits of extreme rapid growth Avhich seme- 
times occur in childhood, the great abstraction of 
energy is shown in the attendant prostration, bodily 
and mental. Once more, the facts that violent 
muscular exertion after eating will stop digestion, 
and that children who are earl}^ put to hard labour 



270 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

become stunted, similarly exhibit the an<-agonism 
— similarly imply that excess of activity in one 
direction involves deficiency of it in other direc- 
tions. Now, the law which is thus manifest in ex= 
treme cases holds in all cases. These injurious ab- 
stractions of energy as certainly take place when 
the undue demands are slight and constant, as 
when they are great and sudden. Hence, if in 
youth, the expenditure in mental labour exceeds 
that which nature had provided for ; the expendi- 
ture for other purposes falls below what it should 
have been: and evils of one kind or other are inev- 
itably entailed. Let us briefly consider these evils. 
Supposing the over-activity of brain not to be 
extreme, but to exceed the normal activity only in 
a moderate degree, there will be nothing more than 
some slight reaction on the development of the 
body : the stature falling a little below that which 
it would else have reached ; or the bulk being less 
than it would have been ; or the quality of tissue 
being not so good. One or more of these effects 
must necessarily occur. The extra quantity of 
blood supplied to the brain, not only during the 
period of mental exertion, but during the subse- 
quent period in which the waste of cerebral sub- 
stance is being made good, is blood that would else 
have been circulating through the limbs and vis- 
cera ; and the amount of growth or repair for which 
that blood would have supplied materials, is lost. 
This physical reaction being certain, the question 
is, whether the gain resulting from the extra cub 



ANTAGONISM OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. 2Yl 

tnre is equivalent to the loss ? — whether defect of 
bodily growth, or the want of that structural per- 
fection which gives high vigour and endurance, 
is compensated for by the additional knowledge 
gained ? 

When the excess of mental exertion is greater, 
there follow results far more serious; telling not 
only against bodily perfection, but against the 
perfection of the brain itself. It is a physiological 
law, first pointed out by M. Isidore St. Hilaire, and 
to which attention has been drawn by Mr. Lewes 
in his essay on Dwarfs and Giants^ that there is 
an antagonism between growth and develojpnfient. 
By growth, as used in this antithetical sense, is to 
be understood increase of size j by development, 
increase of structure. And the law is, that great 
activity in either of these processes involves retar- 
dation or arrest of the other. A familiar illustra- 
tion is furnished by the cases of the caterpillar and 
the chrysalis. In the caterpillar there is extremely 
rapid augmentation of bulk ; but the structure is 
scarcely at all more complex when the caterpillar 
is full-grown than wlien it is small. In the chrysa- 
lis the bulk does not increase ; on the contrary, 
weiglit is lost during this stage of the creature's 
life ; but the elaboration of a more complex struc- 
ture goes on with great activity. The antagonism, 
here so clear, is less traceable in higher creatures, 
because the two processes are carried on together. 
But we see it pretty well illustrated among our- 
selves by contrasting the sexes. A girl develops 
17 



272 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

in body and mind rapidl}^, and ceases to grow com- 
paratively early. A boy's bodily and mental de- 
velopment is slower, and his growth greater. At 
the age when the one is mature, finished, and hav- 
ing all faculties in full play, the other, whose vital 
energies have been more directed towards increase 
of size, is relatively incomplete in structure ; and 
shows it in a comparative awkwardness, bodily and 
mental. Now this law is true not only of the 
organism as a whole, but of each separate part. 
The abnormally rapid advance of any part in re- 
spect of structure involves premature arrest of its 
growth; and this happens with the organ of the 
mind as certainly as with any other organ. The 
brain, which during early years is relatively large 
in mass but imperfect in structure will, if required 
to perform its functions with undue activity, under- 
go a structural advance greater than is appropriate 
to the age ; but the ultimate efiect will be a falling 
short of the size and power that would else have 
been attained. And this is a part cause — probably 
the chief cause — why precocious children, and 
youths who up to a certain time were carrying all 
before them, so often stop short and disappoint the 
high hopes of their parents. 

But these results of over-education, disastrous 
as they are, are perhaps less disastrous than the re- 
sults produced upon the health — the undermined 
constitution, the enfeebled energies, the morbid 
feelings. Recent discoveries in physiology have 
ehown how immense is the influence of the brain 



OI8TUEBING EFFECTS OF CEREBRAL EXCITEMENT. 273 

over tlie functions of the body. The digestion of 
the food, the circulation of the blood, and through 
these all other organic processes, are profoundly 
affected, by cerebral excitement. Whoever has 
seen repeated, as we have, the experiment first per- 
formed by Weber, showing the consequence of 
irritating the vagus nerve which connects the brain 
with the viscera — whoever has seen the action of 
the heart suddenly arrested by the irritat'on of this 
nerve ; slowly recommencing when the irritation is 
suspended ; and again arrested the moment it is re- 
newed ; will have a vivid conception of the depress- 
ing influence which an over-wrought brain exer- 
cises on the body. The effects thus physiologically 
explained, are indeed exemplified in ordinary ex- 
perience. There is no one but has felt the palpita- 
tion accompanying hope, fear, anger, joy — no one 
but has observed how laboured becomes the action 
of the heart when these feelings are very violent. 
And though there are many who have never them 
selves suffered that extreme emotional excitement 
which is followed by arrest of the heart's action 
and fainting; yet every one knows them to be 
cause and effect. It is a familiar fact, too, that dis- 
turbance of the stomach is entailed by mental ex- 
citement exceeding a certain intensity. Loss of 
appetite is a common result alike of very pleasura- 
ble and. very painful states of mind. When the 
event producing a pleasurable or painful state of 
mind occurs shortly after a meal, it not unfrequent- 
ly happens either that the stomach rejects what has 



274 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

been eaten, or digests it with great difficulty and 
under prolonged protest. And as every one who 
taxes his brain much can testify, even purely intel- 
lectual action will, when excessive, produce analo= 
gous eiFects. Now the relation between brain and 
body which is so manifest in these extreme cases, 
holds equally in ordinary, less-marked cases. Just 
as these violent but temporary cerebral excitements 
produce violent but temporary disturbances of the 
viscera ; so do the less violent but chronic cerebral 
excitements, produce less violent but chronic visce- 
ral disturbances. This is not simply an inference 
— it is a truth to which every medical man can 
bear witness ; and it is one to which a long and sad 
experience enables us to give personal testimony. 
Various degrees and forms of bodily derangement, 
often taking years of enforced idleness to set par- 
tially right, result from this prolonged over-exertion 
of mind. Sometimes the heart is chiefly affected : 
habitual palpitations; a pulse much enfeebled; 
and very generally a diminution in the number of 
beats from seventy-two to sixty, or even fewer. 
Sometimes the conspicuous disorder is of the stom- 
ach : a dyspepsia which makes life a burden, and 
is amenable to no remedy but time. In many cases 
both heart and stomach are implicated. Mostly 
the sleep is short and broken. And very generally 
there is more or less mental depression. 

Consider, then, how great must be the damage 
inflicted by undue mental excitement on children 
8nd youths. More or less of this constitutional dis- 



DANGEROUS EFFECTS OF OVER STUDY. 275 

turbance will inevitably follow an exertion of brain 
beyond that which nature had provided for ; and 
when not so excessive as to produce absolute illness, 
is sure to entail a slowly accumulating degeneracy 
oi physique. With a small and fastidious appetite, 
an imperfect digestion, and an enfeebled circula- 
tion, how can the developing body flourish ? The 
due performance of every vital process depends 
on the adequate supply of good blood. Without 
enough good blood, no gland can secrete properly, 
no viscus can fully discharge its oflice. Without 
enough good blood, no nerve, muscle, membrane, 
or other tissue can be efficiently repaired. With- 
out enough good blood, growth will neither be 
sound nor sufficient. Judge, then, how bad must 
be the consequences when to a growing body the 
weakened stomach supplies blood that is deficient 
in quantity and poor in quality ; while the debili- 
tated heart propels this poor and scanty blood with 
unnatural slowness. 

And if, as all who candidly investigate the mat- 
ter must admit, physical degeneracy is a conse- 
quence of excessive study, how grave is the con- 
demnation to be passed upon this cramming sys- 
tem above exemplified. It is a terrible mistake, 
from whatever point of view regarded. It is a 
mistake in so far as the mere acquirement of knowl- 
edge is concerned : for it is notorious that the 
mind, like the body, cannot assimilate beyond a 
certain rate ; and if you ply it with facts faster 
than it can assimilate them, they are very soon re- 



276 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

jected again : they do not become permanently 
built into the intellectual fabric ; but tall out of 
recollection after the passing of the examination 
for which they were got up. It is a mistake, too, 
because it tends to make study distasteful. Either 
through the painful associations produced by cease- 
less mental toil, or through the abnormal state of 
brain it leaves behind, it often generates an aver- 
sion to books ; and, instead of that subsequent self- 
culture induced by a rational education, there 
comes a continued retrogression. It is a mistake, 
also, inasmuch as it assumes that the acquisition of 
knowledge is everything ; and forgets that a much 
more important matter is the organization of knowl- 
edge, for wdiich time and spontaneous thinking are 
requisite. Just as Humboldt remarks respecting 
the progress of intelligence in general, that " the 
interpretation of nature is obscured when the de- 
scription languishes under too great an accumula- 
tion of insulated facts;" so it may be remarked, 
respecting the progress of individual intelligence, 
that the mind is overburdened and hampered by 
an excess of ill-digested information. It is not the 
knowledge stored up as intellectual fat \vhich is of 
value ; but that which is turned into intellectual 
muscle. But the mistake is still deeper. Even 
were the system good as a system of intellectual 
training, which it is not, it would still be bad, be- 
cause, as we have shown, it is fatal to that vigour 
o^ physique which is needful to make intellectual 
training available in the struggle of life. Those 



THE PKICELESS BLESSING OF HEALTH. 27 1 

\ylio, ill eagerness to cultivate their pupils' minds, 
are reckless of their bodies, do not remember that 
success in the world depends much more ujDon en- 
ergy than upon information ; and that a policy 
which in cramming with information undermines 
energy, is self-defeating. The strong will and un- 
tiring activity which result from abundant animal 
vigour, go far to compensate even for great defects 
of education ; and when joined with that quite ad- 
equate education which may be obtained without 
sacrificing health, they ensure an easy victory ov^er 
competitors enfeebled by excessive study : prodi- 
gies of learning though they may be. A compara- 
tively small and ill-made engine, worked at high- 
pressure, will do more than a larger and well-fin- 
ished one worked at low-pressure. What folly is 
it, then, while finishing the engine, so to damage 
the boiler that it will not generate steam ! Once 
more, the system is a mistake, as involving a false 
estimate of welfare in life. Even supposing it 
were a means to worldly success, instead of a means 
to worldly failure, yet, in the entailed ill-health, it 
would inflict a more than equivalent curse. What 
boots it to have attained wealth, if the wealth is 
accompanied by ceaseless ailments? What is the 
worth of distinction, if it has brought hypochon- 
dria with it ? Surely none needs telling that a good 
digestion, a bounding pulse, and high spirits are 
elements of happiness which no external advan- 
tages can outbalance. Chronic bodily disorder 
casts a gloom over the brightest prospects ; while 



278 PHYSICAL EDrCATION. 

the vivacity of strong health gilds even misfortune. 
We contend, then, that this over-education is vi- 
cious in every way — vicious, as giving knowledge 
that will soon be forgotten ; vicious, as producing 
a disgust for knowledge ; vicious, as neglectirig 
that organization of knowledge which is more im- 
portant than its acquisition ; vicious, as weakening 
or destroying that energy, without which a trained 
intellect is useless ; vicious, as entailing that ill- 
health for which even success would not compen- 
sate, and which makes failure doubly bitter. 

On women the effects of this forcing system 
are, if possible, even more injurious than on men. 
Being in great measure debarred from those vigor- 
ous and enjoyable exercises of body by which boys 
mitigate the evils of excessive study, girls feed 
these evils in their full intensity. Hence, the 
much smaller proportion of them who grow up 
well made and healthy. In the pale, angular, flat- 
chested young ladies, so abundant in London diaw- 
ing-rooins, we see the effect of merciless applica- 
tion, unrelieved by youthful sports ; and this phys- 
ical degeneracy exhibited by them, hinders their 
welfare far more than their many accomplishments 
aid it. Mammas anxious to make their daughters 
attractive, could scarcely clioose a coux'se more fatal 
than this, which sacrifices the body to the mind. 
Either they disregard the tastes of the opposite 
sex, or else their conception of those tastes is erro- 
neous. Men care comparatively little for erudition 
in women ; but very much for physical beauty, and 



ELEMENTS OF FEMININE ATTRACTION. 279 

goodnature, and sound sense. How many con- 
quests does tlie blue-stocking make through her ex- 
tensive knowledge of history ? What man ever 
fell in love with a woman because she understood 
Italian ? AVhere is the Edwin who was brouglit to 
Angelina's feet by her German ? But rosy cheeks 
and laughing eyes are great attractions. A finely 
rounded figure draws admiring glances. The live- 
liness aijd good humour that overflowing health 
produces, go a great way towards establishing at- 
tachments. Every one knows cases where bodily 
perfections, in the absence of all other recommer.- 
dations, have incited a passion that carried all be- 
fore it ; but scarcely any one can point to a case 
where mere intellectual acquirements, apart from 
moral or physical attributes, have aroused such a 
feeling. The truth is that, out of the many ele- 
ments uniting in various proportions to produce in 
a man's breast that complex emotion which we call 
love, the strongest are those produced by physical 
attractions ; the next in order of strength are those 
produced by moral attractions ; the M^eakest are 
those produced by intellectual attractions ; and 
even these are dependent much less upon acquired 
knowledge than on natural faculty — quickness, wit, 
insight. If any think the assertion a derogatory 
one, and inveigh against the masculine character 
for being thus swayed ; we reply that they little 
know Mdiat they say when they thus call in ques- 
tion the Divine ordinations. Even were there no 
obvious meaning in the arrangement, we might be 



2S0 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

sure tliat poiiie important end was subserved. But 
the meaning is quite obvious to those who exam- 
ine. It needs but to remember that one of Ka 
ture's ends, or rather her supreme end, is the wel- 
fare of posterity — it needs but to remember that, 
in so far as posterity are concerned, a cultivated 
intelligence based upon a bad physique is of little 
worth, seeing that its descendants will die out in a 
generation or two — it needs but to bear in mind 
that a good physique, however poor the accompa- 
nying iBental endowments, is worth preserving, be- 
cause, throughout future generations, the mental 
endowments may be indefinitely developed — it 
needs but to contempUite these truths, to see how 
important is the balance of instincts above de- 
scribed. But, purpose apart, the instincts being 
thus balanced, it is a fatal folly to persist in a sys- 
tem whicli undermines a girl's constitution that it 
may overload her memory. Educate as highly as 
])Ossible — the higher the better — providing no bod- 
ily injury is entailed (and we may remark, in pass- 
ing, that a high standard might be so reached Avere 
the parrot-faculty cultivated less, and the human 
faculty more, and were the discipline extended 
over that now wasted period between leaving school 
and being married). But to educate in such man- 
ner, or to such extent, as to produce physical de- 
generacy, is to defeat the chief end for which the 
toil and cost and anxiety are submitted to. By 
subjecting their daughters to this high-pressure 
system, po.rents frequently ruin their prospects in 



ERKORS OF THE PREVALENT SYSTEM. 2S1 

life. Not only do they inflict on them enfeebled 
health, with all its pains and disabilities and gloom f 
but very often they actually doom them to celibacy. 

Our general conclusion is, then, that the ordi- 
nary treatinent of children is, in various ways, se- 
riously prejudicial. It errs in deficient feeding; 
in deficient clothing ; in deficient exercise (among 
girls at least) ; and in excessive mental application. 
Considering the regime as a whole, its tendency is 
too exacting : it asks too much and gives too little. 
In the extent to which it taxes the vital energies, 
it makes the juvenile life much more like the adult 
life than it should be. It overlooks the truth that, 
as in the foetus the entire vitality is expended in 
the directipn of growth — as in the infant, the ex- 
penditure of vitality in growth is so great as to 
leave extremely little for either physical or mental 
action ; so throughout childhood and youth growth 
is the dominant requirement to which all others 
must be subordinated : a requirement which dic- 
tates the giving of much and the taking away of 
little — a requirement which, therefore, restricts the 
exertion of body and mind to a degree proportion- 
ate to the rapidity of growth — a requirement which 
permits the mental and physical activities to in- 
crease only as fast as the rate of growth diminishes. 

Regarded from another point of view, this high- 
pressure education manifestly results from our pass- 
ing phase of civilization. In primitive times, when 
aggression and defence were the leading social ac- 



282 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

tivities, bodily vigour with its accompanying conn 
age were the desiderata ; and then education was 
almost wholly physical : mental cultivation was lit- 
tle cared for, and indeed, as in our own feudal ages, 
was often treated with contempt. But now that 
our state is relatively peaceful — now that muscular 
power is of use for little else than manual labour, 
while social success of nearly every kind de- 
pends very much on mental power ; our education 
has become almost exclusively mental. Instead 
of respecting the body and ignoring the mind, 
vre now respect the mind and ignore the body. 
Both these attitudes are wrong. We do not yet 
sufficiently realize the truth that as, in this life of 
ours, the physical underlies the mental, the mental 
must not be developed at the expense of the physi' 
cal. The ancient and modern conceptions must be 
combined. 

Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time 
when body and mind will both be adequately cared 
for, as a diifusion of the belief that the preserva- 
tion of health is a duti/. iew seem conscious that 
there is such a thing as physical morality. Men's 
habitual words and acts imply the idea that they 
are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. 
Disorders entailed by disobedience to Nature's dic- 
tates, they regard simply as grievances : not as the 
effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though 
the evil consequences inflicted on their depend- 
ents, and on future generations, are often as great 
as those caused by crime ; yet they do not think 



PHYSICAL IMMOKALITIES AND SINS. 283 

themselves in any degree criminal. It is true, that, 
in the case of drunkenness, the viciousness of a 
purely bodily transgression is recognised ; but none 
appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression is 
vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. The 
fact Is, that all breaches of the laws of health are 
physical siiis. Wlien this is generally seen, then, 
and perhaps not till then, will the physical training 
of the young receive all the attention it deserves. 



THE END. 



3477 



